Innatism

In the philosophy of mind, innatism is the view that the mind is born
with already-formed ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. The opposing
doctrine, that the mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate) at birth and all
knowledge is gained from experience and the senses, is called
empiricism.

Difference from
nativism
Innatism and nativism are generally synonymous terms referring to the
notion of preexisting ideas in the mind. However, more specifically,
innatism refers to the philosophy of Descartes, who assumed that God
or a similar being or process placed innate ideas and principles in the
human mind.[1] The innatist principles in this regard may overlap with
similar concepts such as natural order and state of nature, in
philosophy.

Nativism represents an adaptation of this, grounded in the fields of

genetics, cognitive psychology, and psycholinguistics. Nativists hold
that innate beliefs are in some way genetically programmed in our
mind—they are the phenotypes of certain genotypes that all humans
share in common. Nativism is a modern view rooted in innatism. The
advocates of nativism are mainly philosophers who also work in the
field of cognitive psychology or psycholinguistics: most notably Noam
Chomsky and Jerry Fodor (although the latter adopted a more critical
attitude toward nativism in his later writings). The nativist's general
objection against empiricism is still the same as was raised by the
rationalists; the human mind of a newborn child is not a tabula rasa but
is equipped with an inborn structure.

History
Although individual human beings vary in many ways (culturally, racially,
linguistically, and so on), innate ideas are the same for everyone
everywhere. For example, the philosopher René Descartes theorized
that knowledge of God is innate in everybody. Philosophers such as
Descartes and Plato were rationalists. Other philosophers, most notably
the empiricists, were critical of innate ideas and denied they existed.

The debate over innate ideas is central to the conflict between

rationalists (who believe certain ideas exist independently of
experience) and empiricists (who believe knowledge is derived from
experience).

Many believe the German philosopher Immanuel Kant synthesized

these two early modern traditions in his philosophical thought.

Plato
Plato argues that if there are certain concepts that we know to be true
but did not learn from experience, then it must be because we have an
innate knowledge of it and that this knowledge must have been gained
before birth. In Plato's Meno, he recalls a situation where his mentor
Socrates questioned a slave boy about geometry. Though the slave boy
had no previous experience with geometry, he was able to answer
correctly. Plato reasoned that this was possible because Socrates'
questions sparked the innate knowledge of math the boy had from
birth.[2]

Descartes
Descartes conveys the idea that innate knowledge or ideas is
something inborn such as one would say, that a certain disease might
be 'innate' to signify that a person might be at risk of contracting such a
disease. He suggests that something that is 'innate' is effectively
present from birth and while it may not reveal itself then, is more than
likely to present itself later in life. Descartes’ comparison of innate
knowledge to an innate disease, whose symptoms may show up only
later in life, unless prohibited by a factor like age or puberty, suggests
that if an event occurs prohibiting someone from exhibiting an innate
behaviour or knowledge, it doesn't mean the knowledge did not exist at
all but rather it wasn't expressed – they were not able to acquire that
knowledge. In other words, innate beliefs, ideas and knowledge require
experiences to be triggered or they may never be expressed.
Experiences are not the source of knowledge as proposed by John
Locke, but catalysts to the uncovering of knowledge.[3]

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz suggested that we are born with certain
innate ideas, the most identifiable of these being mathematical
truisms. The idea that 1 + 1 = 2 is evident to us without the necessity for
empirical evidence. Leibniz argues that empiricism can show us show
that concepts are true in the present; the observation of one apple and
then another in one instance, and in that instance only, leads to the
conclusion that one and another equals two. However, the suggestion
that one and another will always equal two requires an innate idea, as
that would be a suggestion of things unwitnessed.

Leibniz called such concepts as mathematical truisms "necessary

truths". Another example of such may be the phrase, "What is, is" or "It
is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be". Leibniz argues
that such truisms are universally assented to (acknowledged by all to
be true); this being the case, it must be due to their status as innate
ideas. Often some ideas are acknowledged as necessarily true but are
not universally assented to. Leibniz would suggest that this is simply
because the person in question has not become aware of the innate
idea, not because they do not possess it. Leibniz argues that empirical
evidence can serve to bring to the surface certain principles that are
already innately embedded in our minds. This is similar to needing to
hear only the first few notes to recall the rest of the melody.

John Locke
The main antagonist to the concept of innate ideas is John Locke, a
contemporary of Leibniz. Locke argued that the mind is in fact devoid
of all knowledge or ideas at birth; it is a blank sheet or tabula rasa. He
argued that all our ideas are constructed in the mind via a process of
constant composition and decomposition of the input that we receive
through our senses.

Locke, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, suggests that the

concept of universal assent in fact proves nothing, except perhaps that
everyone is in agreement; in short universal assent proves that there is
universal assent and nothing else. Moreover, Locke goes on to suggest
that in fact there is no universal assent. Even a phrase such as "What is,
is" is not universally assented to; infants and severely mentally disabled
adults do not generally acknowledge this truism. Locke also attacks the
idea that an innate idea can be imprinted on the mind without the
owner realizing it. For Locke, such reasoning would allow one to
conclude the absurd: “All the Truths a Man ever comes to know, will, by
this account, be, every one of them, innate.”[4] To return to the musical
analogy, we may not be able to recall the entire melody until we hear the
first few notes, but we were aware of the fact that we knew the melody
and that upon hearing the first few notes we would be able to recall the
rest.

Locke ends his attack upon innate ideas by suggesting that the mind is
a tabula rasa or "blank slate", and that all ideas come from experience;
all our knowledge is founded in sensory experience.

Essentially, the same knowledge thought to be a priori by Leibniz is,

according to Locke, the result of empirical knowledge, which has a lost
origin [been forgotten] in respect to the inquirer. However, the inquirer is
not cognizant of this fact; thus, he experiences what he believes to be a
priori knowledge.

1) The theory of innate knowledge is excessive. Even innatists accept

that most of our knowledge is learned through experience, but if that
can be extended to account for all knowledge, we learn color through
seeing it, so therefore, there is no need for a theory about an innate
understanding of color.

2) No ideas are universally held. Do we all possess the idea of God? Do

we all believe in justice and beauty? Do we all understand the law of
identity? If not, it may not be the case that we have acquired these
ideas through impressions/experience/social interaction.

3) Even if there are some universally agreed statements, it is just the

ability of the human brain to organize learned ideas/words, that is,
innate. An "ability to organize" is not the same as "possessing
propositional knowledge" (e.g., a computer with no saved files has all
the operations programmed in but has an empty memory).

Contemporary
approaches

Linguistics
In his Meno, Plato raises an important epistemological quandary: How
is it that we have certain ideas that are not conclusively derivable from
our environments? Noam Chomsky has taken this problem as a
philosophical framework for the scientific inquiry into innatism. His
linguistic theory, which derives from 18th century classical-liberal
thinkers such as Wilhelm von Humboldt, attempts to explain in
cognitive terms how we can develop knowledge of systems which are
said, by supporters of innatism, to be too rich and complex to be
derived from our environment. One such example is our linguistic
faculty. Our linguistic systems contain a systemic complexity which
supposedly could not be empirically derived: the environment seems
too poor, variable and indeterminate, according to Chomsky, to explain
the extraordinary ability to learn complex concepts possessed by very
young children. Essentially, their accurate grammatical knowledge
cannot have originated from their experiences as their experiences are
not adequate.[3] It follows that humans must be born with a universal
innate grammar, which is determinate and has a highly organized
directive component, and enables the language learner to ascertain and
categorize language heard into a system. Chomsky states that the
ability to learn how to properly construct sentences or know which
sentences are grammatically incorrect is an ability gained from innate
knowledge.[2] Noam Chomsky cites as evidence for this theory, the
apparent invariability, according to his views, of human languages at a
fundamental level. In this way, linguistics may provide a window into the
human mind, and establish scientific theories of innateness which
otherwise would remain merely speculative.

One implication of Noam Chomsky's innatism, if correct, is that at least

a part of human knowledge consists in cognitive predispositions, which
are triggered and developed by the environment, but not determined by
it. Chomsky suggests that we can look at how a belief is acquired as an
input-output situation. He supports the doctrine of innatism as he
states that human beliefs gathered from sensory experience are much
richer and complex than the experience itself. He asserts that the extra
information gathered is from the mind itself as it cannot solely be from
experiences. Humans derive excess amount of information from their
environment so some of that information must be pre-determined.[3]

See also

Anamnesis
Bouba/kiki effect
Concept
Fitra
Idea
Instinct
 Nature versus nurture
Platonism
Psychological nativism
Tabula rasa

References

Citations

1. Tad M. Schmaltz, Radical

Cartesianism: The French
Reception of Descartes,
Cambridge University Press,
2002, p. 257.
2. Lacewing, M. (n.d.). Innate
knowledge. Routledge Taylor &
Francis Group. Retrieved from
 http://documents.routledge-
interactive.s3.amazonaws.co
m/9781138793934
/AS/ReasonandExperience
/Innate-knowledge.pdf
3. Stich, S. P. (1975). Innate
ideas. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
4. Locke, John (1860). An essay
concerning human
understanding: and a treatise
on the conduct of the
understanding. Complete in
one volume with the author's
last additions and corrections
(https://books.google.com/bo
oks?id=J0sdAQAAMAAJ&
 q=%22%E2%80%9Call+the+Tr
uths+a+Man+ever+comes+t
o+know%2C+will%2C+by+thi
s+account%2C+be%2C+ever
y+one+of+them%2C+innate%
E2%80%9D+%22&pg=PA42) .
Hayes & Zell.

Classical texts

Descartes, René. Meditations

on First Philosophy with
Selections from the
Objections and Replies,
translated by John
Cottingham (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press,
 1986).
Locke, John. An Essay
Concerning Human
Understanding. 1690.
Leibniz, Gottfried. Discourse
on Metaphysics and Related
Writings, edited and
translated by R. N. D. Martin
and Stuart Brown
(Manchester and New
York:Manchester University
Press, 1988).

Recent studies

Carruthers, Peter. Human

Knowledge and Human
Nature. A New Introduction to
an Ancient Debate, New York :
Oxford University Press,
1992.
Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of
the Theory of Syntax.
(Cambridge, Mass, 1965)
Kaldis, Byron. "Leibniz'
Argument for Innate Ideas" in
Just the Arguments: 100 of
the Most Important
Arguments in Western
Philosophy edited by M Bruce
& S Barbone (Blackwell,
2011).
Ridling, Zaine (2001).
"Philosophy: Then and Now A
look back at 26 centuries of
thought." Types and
Expressions of Rationalism,
pp. 514–515. Access
Foundation.
Unger, Wolfgang. "Nativism
in the Light of Locke's
Critique on Innate
Principles." (http://www.cos
mologica.de/locke/lockepap
er.htm) Term Paper in Phil
702, Locke's Essay.
Department of Philosophy,
University of Massachusetts,
 Amhernt.
University of California
Santa Barbara, Department
of Philosophy: PowerPoint:
Locke's attack on innatism
(http://www.philosophy.ucs
b.edu/faculty/holden/classe
s/phil20c/phil20clecture3.p
pt) .

External links

"The Historical
Controversies Surrounding
Innateness" (https://plato.st
anford.edu/entries/innatene
 ss-history/) entry by Jerry
Samet in the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Essay: Nativism in the Light
of Locke’s Critique on Innate
Principles (http://www.cosm
ologica.de/locke/lockepape
r.htm)
The Rationalist Tradition (htt
p://www.whitworth.edu/core
/classes/CO250/Intro/d_inn
at.htm)

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