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Single Idea 11143
[filed under theme 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts
]
Full Idea
Fodor argues that virtually all lexical concepts are innate, because most models of learning treat concept-learning as hypothesis testing, but that invariably employs the very concept to be learned.
Gist of Idea
If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started
Source
report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by E Margolis/S Laurence - Concepts 3.3
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.13
A Reaction
The obvious response is to reject the theory which gave rise to this difficulty. I take concept formation to be a fairly mechanical and barely conscious response to environment, not a process of fully rational and conscious hypothesising.
The
15 ideas
with the same theme
[concepts as innate or native ingredients of minds]:
3631
|
A blind man may still contain the idea of colour
[Descartes]
|
2273
|
The ideas of God and of my self are innate in me
[Descartes]
|
2285
|
I can think of innumerable shapes I have never experienced
[Descartes]
|
2286
|
The idea of a supremely perfect being is within me, like the basic concepts of mathematics
[Descartes]
|
2600
|
The mind's innate ideas are part of its capacity for thought
[Descartes]
|
2601
|
Qualia must be innate, because physical motions do not contain them
[Descartes]
|
12471
|
Innate ideas are nothing, if they are in the mind but we are unaware of them
[Locke]
|
8100
|
Where does the bird's idea of a nest come from?
[Joubert]
|
6649
|
Chomsky now says concepts are basically innate, as well as syntax
[Chomsky, by Lowe]
|
6650
|
Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts
[Fodor, by Lowe]
|
2492
|
Experience can't explain itself; the concepts needed must originate outside experience
[Fodor]
|
11143
|
If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started
[Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence]
|
12662
|
We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype
[Fodor]
|
4997
|
It seems unlikely that most concepts are innate, if a theory must be understood to grasp them
[Kirk,R]
|
18592
|
The concepts OBJECT or AGENT may be innate
[Machery]
|