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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]
2601 Qualia must be innate, because physical motions do not contain them [Descartes]
2600 The mind's innate ideas are part of its capacity for thought [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]