REASON- Empiricist Responses To Innatism Flashcards
(8 cards)
Who provided arguments against innatism
Locke
Summarise the no universal assent criticism
P1) any innate idea, x, if it exists , would be universally held
P2) children (and some adults) don’t have the idea of x
P3) if an idea is held in the mind then you must be aware of it.
C1) so x is not universally held
C2) therefore x is not innate
What is the criticism of no universal assent
People claimed that they’re ideas held by everyone and therefore they must be innate.
Lockes response was that children and some adults do not posses some allegedly innate principles such as ‘whatever is, is’ (law of identity) or ‘it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’( the law of non-contradiction)
Innatism response to the criticism of no universal assent
Against p2) Leibniz claimed that children do employ innate principles in there everyday actions, even if they cannot articulate the ideas in words. Eg. A child knows her teddy cannot be in her hand and in the loft at the same time
What is the criticism of the transparency of ideas
Another argument against P2 of the no universal assent criticism is that children may posses innate ideas but no yet be aware of them.
Locke argues against this saying that if we did have innate ideas( eg the idea of god) then they must be present in our minds (p3)- not constantly but we must have been aware of them at some point. He claimed our minds are transparent and we can perceive all the ideas they contain.
If you’ve never had an idea or thought, in what sense can it be ‘in’ you minds?
Response to the transparency of ideas criticism
There could be ideas or memories in your mind that you have never been conscious of.
- could’ve ‘absorbed’ a song on the radio, without being consciously aware of it. The song is not ‘transparent’ in your mind, but may be recognisable if you heard it again. So, it must be ‘in’ you somewhere
-an innate idea could be ‘in’ you mind, without you being aware of it yet. Leibniz argued this in his New Essays
What is the criticism of How can we distinguish innate ideas from other ideas?
If some of our ideas are innate and some gained from experience, how can we tell them apart? Why not say the idea of blue was in you from birth, but only when you saw the colour blue does the idea/ capacity become active? Similarly with the idea of a cat or geometry etc
What is the response to the criticism of How can we distinguish innate ideas from other ideas?
Leibniz suggests that we can distinguish them as they are true in a different way- they are necessarily true. Although young children may not know many of the truths of mathematics, once they do understand a truth, the mind immediately recognises that it has an eternal application and that such truths are different from truths of fact.
