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Innate ideas were imprinted on our minds at birth (usually by God). Innate ideas are part of our rational nature.

  • Innate concept thesis

We have some concepts as part of our rational nature (e.g. causation, color, the number one)

  • Innate knowledge thesis

We have knowledge of some truths as part of our rational nature (e.g. God exists, the inside angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees).

Are innate ideas known a priori or a posteriori?

What are innate ideas?

Are there innate ideas according to Locke?

Are there innate ideas according to Leibniz?

Locke

Does Leibniz believe that all ideas are innate?

Locke believes no ideas are innate. The mind is a blank slate on which experience writes.

All ideas are acquired or derived from sense experience. True or false?

Knowledge and concepts can only be gained by sense experience and reflection.

False. Experience is of two kinds: sensation and reflection.

Yes, they are all innate in the sense that they were imprinted on our souls by God and creation. No, only some ideas are innate in the sense that they are part of all rational natures.

He still distinguishes between necessary and contingent truths.

'Nathalie is a mother' is true contingently. Only because God imprinted me with that predicate.

'The inside angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees' is a necessary truth. Even if God had tried to create the worst possible world, that would be true.

We cannot create simple ideas we can only receive them from experience. We can combine simple ideas into complex ones.

How can I have the idea of a Wolperdinger, according to Locke, if they don't exist in nature?

Substances are independent existences: God, angels, humans, animals, plants...

Modes are dependent existences:

dozen, distance, beauty, theft...

The different ways of knowing:

How are innate ideas in our minds?

Exception: God. We can rationally intuit the existence of God.

  • Rational intuition/ pure reason
  • Experience: sensation & reflection
  • Divine revelation

Why can't ideas be innate, that is, known a priori?

  • Consciously have this knowledge -- then plainly false
  • Capacity to have this knowledge -- not interesting, we have the capacity to know all sorts of truths; too broad a category

Objections

  • Not universally shared
  • Not immediately perceived

Leibniz's response: natural potential -- marble analogy

Locke writes:

Peter Carruther's writes in 1992:

"We have noted that while one form of nativism claims (somewhat implausibly) that knowledge is innate in the sense of being present as such (or at least in propositional form) from birth, it might also be maintained that knowledge is innate in the sense of being innately determined to make its appearance at some stage in childhood. This later thesis is surely the most plausible version of nativism"

"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; and this great point will amount to no more, but only an improper way of speaking; which whilst it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those, who deny innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied, that the mind was capable of knowing several truths"

Leibniz:

"It is obvious to everyone, and Locke would presumably not deny it, that we aren't always aware of dispositions that we do nevertheless have. And we aren't always aware of the contents of our memory".

Do you find Leibniz's response compelling?

Are there innate ideas?

The Contestants

Locke, in favor of empiricism.

Leibniz in favor of nativism.

The Innate Knowledge Thesis

Intuition/Deduction Thesis

We have a priori knowledge as part of our rational nature. Experience may trigger our awareness of innate ideas, but it does not provide us with it. The knowledge is already there.

Leibniz's defense of innate knowledge

We can know some propositions by intuition and still more by deduction.

Meno's paradox

Meno is one of Plato's dialogues

"The senses, although they are necessary for all our actual knowledge, are not sufficient to give us the whole of it, since the senses never give anything but instances, that is to say particular or individual truths. Now all the instances which confirm a general truth, however numerous they may be, are not sufficient to establish the universal necessity of this same truth, for it does not follow that what happened before will happen in the same way again" (Preface, emphasis added).

Phenomenon: knowledge by inquiry/ learning

Offer me an example of what Leibniz has in mind! Discuss with your neighbor first.

Seems impossible:

  • We either already know the solution at the start of our investigation, in which case there is nothing to inquire about
  • We don't know the solution, that is, we lack knowledge in which case we don't know what we are seeking and cannot recognize the solution.

Plato's solution: recollection

Debate: can we rationally intuit or deduce truths about the external world?

Spelling dictionaries

Personal Identity

Locke's positive account:

For, Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz and Locke it is very important to be able to keep track of personal identity.

Descartes claims to know by reason alone metaphysical constructs. It is clearly and distinctly perceived that...

Personal identity consists in continuity of consciousness

Why can't the body individuate the person?

What is Descartes', Malebranche's and Leibniz's account?

Proposal: The soul individuates the person.

It's the continued existence of a metaphysical substance, the soul, that makes it the case that I am, who I used to be and will be who I am now...

Saint Petrus needs to make sure he is letting the right person into the gates of heaven. Otherwise, how can we reward the virtuous and punish the wicked.

Locke: Book ii, chapter 27

  • The soul as the bearer of PI commits us to skepticism about PI
  • consciousness has natural gaps in it
  • Transferring consciousness from one soul to another
  • Total loss of consciousness

Empiricism puts the entire metaphysical project in jeopardy:

Kant writes:

What makes a person the same through time is her ability to recognize past experiences as belonging to her.

"The very concept of metaphysics ensures that the sources of metaphysics can't be empirical. If something could be known through the senses, that would automatically show that it doesn't belong to metaphysics; that's an upshot of the meaning of the word 'metaphysics'. Its basic principles can never be taken from experience, nor can its basic concepts; for it is not to be physical but metaphysical knowledge, so it must be beyond experience"

A string of experiences that add up to a unified whole life...

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