In the
philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the Body (biology), body and the Reality, external world.
The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a ...
, innatism is the view that the
mind
The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...
is born with already-formed ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. The opposing doctrine, that the mind is a ''
tabula rasa
''Tabula rasa'' (; Latin for "blank slate") is the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences. Proponents typically form the extreme "nurture" ...
'' (blank slate) at birth and all knowledge is gained from
experience
Experience refers to Consciousness, conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience i ...
and the
senses
A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the surroundings through the detection of stimuli. Although, in some cultures, five human senses were traditionally identified as su ...
, is called
empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...
.
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.
[Tad M. Schmaltz, ''Radical Cartesianism: The French Reception of Descartes'', Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 257.] The innatist principles in this regard may overlap with similar concepts such as
natural order and
state of nature
In ethics, political philosophy, social contract theory, religion, and international law, the term state of nature describes the hypothetical way of life that existed before humans organised themselves into societies or civilisations. Philosoph ...
, in philosophy.
Nativism represents an adaptation of this, grounded in the fields of
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...
,
cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning.
Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, whi ...
, and
psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...
. Nativists hold that innate beliefs are in some way genetically programmed in our mind—they are the
phenotypes
In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology (physical form and structure), its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological properti ...
of certain
genotypes
The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a ...
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
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning.
Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, whi ...
or
psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...
: most notably
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
and
Jerry Fodor
Jerry Alan Fodor ( ; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of min ...
(although the latter adopted a more critical attitude toward nativism in his later writings). The nativist's general objection against
empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...
is still the same as was raised by the
rationalists
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to other possible s ...
; the human mind of a newborn child is not a ''
tabula rasa
''Tabula rasa'' (; Latin for "blank slate") is the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences. Proponents typically form the extreme "nurture" ...
'' but is equipped with an inborn structure.
History
Although individual human beings vary in many ways (culturally, ethnically, linguistically, and so on), innate ideas are the same for everyone everywhere. For example, the philosopher
René Descartes
René Descartes ( , ; ; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and Modern science, science. Mathematics was paramou ...
theorized that knowledge of
God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
is innate in everybody. Philosophers such as Descartes and
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
were
rationalists
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to other possible s ...
. Other philosophers, most notably the
empiricists
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...
, 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
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...
synthesized these two early modern traditions in his philosophical thought.
Plato
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
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
''Meno'' (; , ''Ménōn'') is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato around 385 BC., but set at an earlier date around 402 BC. Meno begins the dialogue by asking Socrates whether virtue (in , '' aretē'') can be taught, acquired by practice, o ...
'', he recalls a situation where his mentor
Socrates
Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...
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.
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.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...
suggested that we are born with certain innate ideas, the most identifiable of these being mathematical
truism
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device, and is the opposite of a falsism.
In philosophy, a sentence which asserts incomplete truth con ...
s. The idea that is evident to us without the necessity for
empirical evidence
Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law.
There is no general agreement on how the ...
. 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
John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...
, 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
''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' is a work by John Locke concerning the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It first appeared in 1689 (although dated 1690) with the printed title ''An Essay Concerning Humane Understand ...
'', 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
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device, and is the opposite of a falsism.
In philosophy, a sentence which asserts incomplete truth con ...
. 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."
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
''Tabula rasa'' (; Latin for "blank slate") is the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences. Proponents typically form the extreme "nurture" ...
'' 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
een forgottenin respect to the inquirer. However, the inquirer is not cognizant of this fact; thus, he experiences what he believes to be ''a priori'' knowledge.
# 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.
# 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.
# 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
''Meno'' (; , ''Ménōn'') is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato around 385 BC., but set at an earlier date around 402 BC. Meno begins the dialogue by asking Socrates whether virtue (in , '' aretē'') can be taught, acquired by practice, o ...
'', Plato raises an important epistemological quandary: How is it that we have certain ideas that are not conclusively derivable from our environments?
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
has taken this problem as a philosophical framework for the scientific inquiry into innatism. His linguistic theory, which derives from 18th century
classical-liberal
Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, econ ...
thinkers such as
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named aft ...
, 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.
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.
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.
[Stich, S. P. (1975). ''Innate ideas''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.]
See also
*
Anamnesis
*
Bouba/kiki effect
The bouba–kiki effect ( ) or takete–maluma phenomenon is a non-arbitrary mental association between certain speech sounds and certain visual shapes. The most typical research finding is that people, when presented with nonsense wor ...
*
Concept
A concept is an abstract idea that serves as a foundation for more concrete principles, thoughts, and beliefs.
Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, ...
*
Fitra
or (; ALA-LC: ) is an Arabic word that means 'original disposition', 'natural constitution' or 'innate nature'. The concept somewhat resembles natural order in philosophy, although there are considerable differences as well. In Islam, is the ...
*
Idea
In philosophy and in common usage, an idea (from the Greek word: ἰδέα (idea), meaning 'a form, or a pattern') is the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophe ...
*
Instinct
Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements. The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to me ...
*
Nature versus nurture
Nature versus nurture is a long-standing debate in biology and society about the relative influence on human beings of their genetics, genetic inheritance (nature) and the environmental conditions of their development (nurture). The alliterative ex ...
*
Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary Platonists do not necessarily accept all doctrines of Plato. Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundam ...
*
Psychological nativism
In the field of psychology, nativism is the view that certain skills or abilities are "native" or hard-wired into the brain at birth. This is in contrast to the "blank slate" or view, which states that the brain has inborn capabilities for learni ...
*
Tabula rasa
''Tabula rasa'' (; Latin for "blank slate") is the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences. Proponents typically form the extreme "nurture" ...
*
Rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to ot ...
*
Theory of Forms
The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical theory credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato.
A major concept in metaphysics, the theory suggests that the physical w ...
*
Idealism
Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, Spirit (vital essence), spirit, or ...
*
Qualia
In philosophy of mind, qualia (; singular: quale ) are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () meaning "of what ...
*
Hard problem of consciousness
In the philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experience. It is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining why and how ...
References
Citations
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
* Barrett, H. C. (2014). ''The shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve''. Oxford University Press.
* Carruthers, P., Laurence, S., & Stich, S. (Eds.). (2005). ''The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents.'' Oxford University Press.
* Laurence, S., & Margolis, E. (2024). Introduction:
Whatever Happened to the Debate over Innate Ideas? In ''The Building Blocks of Thought: A Rationalist Account of the Origins of Concepts'' (Oxford University Press).
* 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."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
External links
*
*
ttp://www.whitworth.edu/core/classes/CO250/Intro/d_innat.htm The Rationalist Tradition
{{Authority control
A priori
Epistemological theories
Rationalism