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Single Idea 2273

[filed under theme 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts ]

Full Idea

The idea of God is innate in me, just as the idea of myself is innate in me.

Gist of Idea

The ideas of God and of my self are innate in me

Source

René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §3.51)

Book Ref

Descartes,René: 'Discourse on Method/The Meditations', ed/tr. Sutcliffe,F.E. [Penguin 1968], p.130


The 15 ideas with the same theme [concepts as innate or native ingredients of minds]:

A blind man may still contain the idea of colour [Descartes]
The ideas of God and of my self are innate in me [Descartes]
I can think of innumerable shapes I have never experienced [Descartes]
The idea of a supremely perfect being is within me, like the basic concepts of mathematics [Descartes]
Qualia must be innate, because physical motions do not contain them [Descartes]
The mind's innate ideas are part of its capacity for thought [Descartes]
Innate ideas are nothing, if they are in the mind but we are unaware of them [Locke]
Where does the bird's idea of a nest come from? [Joubert]
Chomsky now says concepts are basically innate, as well as syntax [Chomsky, by Lowe]
Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe]
Experience can't explain itself; the concepts needed must originate outside experience [Fodor]
If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence]
We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor]
It seems unlikely that most concepts are innate, if a theory must be understood to grasp them [Kirk,R]
The concepts OBJECT or AGENT may be innate [Machery]