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12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 3. Innate Knowledge / a. Innate knowledge

[knowledge that arise from within the mind]

16 ideas
When Gentiles follow the law, they must have the law written in their hearts [Paul]
     Full Idea: When the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which shew the works of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness.
     From: St Paul (06: Epistle to the Romans [c.55], 02.15)
     A reaction: This passage was used by theologians as proof of innate ideas, which are, of course, divinely implanted (in the guise of doing things 'by nature'). It is quoted by Leibniz. Thus Christians annexed credit for pagan morality to God.
Initial universal truths are present within us as potential, to be drawn out by reason [Aquinas]
     Full Idea: For present in us by nature are certain initial truths everyone knows, in which lie potentially known conclusions our reasons can draw out and make actually known.
     From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.2)
     A reaction: Note that these are truths rather than concepts, but that they have to be 'drawn out' by reason. This is Descartes' view of the matter, where the 'natural light' of reason is needed to articulate what is innate, such as geometry.
Our thinking about external things doesn't disprove the existence of innate ideas [Descartes]
     Full Idea: You can't prove that Praxiteles never made any statues on the grounds that he did not get from within himself the marble from which he sculpted them.
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 362)
Our souls possess divine seeds of knowledge, which can bear spontaneous fruit [Descartes]
     Full Idea: The human soul possesses something divine in which are deposited the first seeds of useful knowledge, which, in spite of the negligence and embarrassment of poorly done studies, bear spontaneous fruit.
     From: René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 04)
     A reaction: This makes clear the religious underpinning which is required for his commitment to such useful innate ideas (such as basic geometry)
Innate ideas are trivial (if they are just potentials) or absurd (if they claim infants know a lot) [Locke, by Jolley]
     Full Idea: Locke says the doctrine of innate ideas is either reduced to triviality (that we have the potential to acquire knowledge and concepts, which makes all ideas innate), or to the absurd thesis that new-born children know logic, maths and metaphysics.
     From: report of John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 1) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.4
     A reaction: A very effective attack. The defence would have to be the claim that there is no way for certain ideas to have entered the mind (because they are too basic, or too abstract, or too huge), so they could only arise from within the mind.
If the only test of innateness is knowing, then all of our knowledge is innate [Locke]
     Full Idea: If the capacity of knowing be the natural Impression contended for, all the Truths a man ever comes to know, will, by this Account, be, every one of them, innate.
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 1.02.05)
     A reaction: It seems to be a nice empiricist's question, what experience involved in thinking an idea gives a hallmark that it is innate rather than acquired? Perhaps only 'I couldn't have thought of that myself', as Descartes says of several ideas.
A proposition can't be in the mind if we aren't conscious of it [Locke]
     Full Idea: No proposition can be said to be in the mind, which it never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of.
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 1.02.05)
     A reaction: This raises an interesting question. If we believe in the influence of the unconscious, we will have to talk of unconscious beliefs which affect our behaviour. We certainly all have beliefs of which we are not conscious. "Elvis had two feet".
Innate ideas were followed up with innate doctrines, which stopped reasoning and made social control possible [Locke]
     Full Idea: Once innate ideas were established, it was necessary for their followers to receive some doctrines as such, to put them off using their own reason, so that they might be more easily governed.
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 1.03.25?), quoted by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §9.1
     A reaction: Presumably anti-Catholic, though it sounds Marxist. It is hard to challenge innate ideas, but it is hard to challenge Hume's 'natural beliefs'.
All of our thoughts come from within the soul, and not from the senses [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I always accepted the innate idea of God, but my new system says all the thoughts and actions of the soul come from its own depths and could not be given to it by the senses.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 1.01)
     A reaction: It is hard to adjudicate on this one. The counterexamples would be associations. I see a face in the crowd and think of my friend. But Leibniz could be right even about that. Who cares? Externalism is designed to bypass this problem.
Arithmetic and geometry are implicitly innate, awaiting revelation [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I would name the propositions of arithmetic and geometry as innate. ...The actual knowledge of them is not innate. What is innate is what might be called the implicit knowledge of them, as the veins of marble outline a shape for the sculptor.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 1.01)
     A reaction: This seems to walk straight into the empiricist guns. The marble example shows the problem, because the 'veins' will hardly outline David in the block. Locke's challenge is to show that merely 'implicit' ideas have demonstrable reality.
Children learn language fast, with little instruction and few definitions [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I have sometimes been amazed that children can learn languages so early, ...considering how little trouble is taken to instruct children in their native tongue, and how little thought adults give to getting sharp definitions.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.10)
     A reaction: A striking anticipation of the key observation on which Chomsky built his theories, from a philosopher who was equally concerned to defend innate ideas and innate knowledge.
We are equipped with the a priori intuitions needed for the concept of right [Kant]
     Full Idea: Reason has taken care that the understanding is as fully equipped as possible with a priori intuitions for the construction of the concept of right.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals I: Doctrine of Right [1797], Intro E)
     A reaction: A priori intuitions are not the same as innate knowledge or innate concepts, but they must require some sort of inbuilt inner resources. Further evidence that Kant is a rationalist philosopher (if we were unsure).
Innate truths are very uncertain and full of error, so they certainly have exceptions [Peirce]
     Full Idea: It seems to me there is the most historic proof that innate truths are particularly uncertain and mixed up with error, and therefore a fortiori not without exception.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II)
Contrary to commonsense, most of what is in the mind seems to be unlearned [Fodor]
     Full Idea: Contrary to commonsense, it looks as though much of what is in the mind is unlearned.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 15)
Evolution suggests that innate knowledge of human psychology would be beneficial [Fodor]
     Full Idea: If I had to design homo sapiens, I would have made commonsense knowledge of homo sapiens psychology innate; that way nobody would have to spend time learning it.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.132)
Sticklebacks have an innate idea that red things are rivals [Fodor]
     Full Idea: God gave the male stickleback the idea that whatever is red is a rival.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.133)