Innate idea

In the fields of philosophy and psychology, an innate idea is a concept or piece of knowledge that is said to be universal in humanity - something one is born with, as opposed to learning through experience. Although there is obvious variation in culture, language and era-specific perceptions of the world, innate ideas are said to belong to a more fundamental level of human cognition. For example, the philospher Rene Descartes theorized that knowledge of god is innate in everybody through reason. Other philosophers, most notably the empiricists, were critical of the theory and denied the existence of any innate ideas, saying all human knowledge was founded on experience, rather than a priori reasoning.

Philosophical Debate

Philosophically, the debate over innate ideas is found in the conflict between rationalist and empiricist epistemologies. Whilst rationalists believe that certain ideas exist independently of experience, empiricism claims that all knowledge is derived from experience.

Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz suggested that we are born with certain innate ideas, the most identifiable of these being mathematical truisms. The idea that 1 + 1 = 2 is evident to us without the necessity for empirical evidence. Leibniz argues that empiricism can only show us that concepts are true in the present; if we see one stick and then another we know that in that instance, and in that instance only, one and another equals two. If, however, we wish to suggest that one and another will always equal two we require an innate idea, as we are making assumptions about things we have not yet witnessed.

Leibniz called such concepts as mathematical truisms necessary truths. Another example of such may be the phrase, ‘what is, is’ or ‘it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be.’ Leibniz argues that such truism are universally assented to (acknowledged by all to be true), this being the case it must be due to our innate ideas. Often there are ideas that are acknowledged as necessarily true but are not universally assented to. This Leibniz would suggest is simply because the person in question has not become aware of the innate idea, not because they do not possess it. Leibniz argues that empirical evidence can serve to bring to the surface certain principles that are already innately embedded in our minds. This is rather like needing only the first few words of a song to recall the rest of the same song.

The main antagonist to the concept of innate ideas is John Locke, a contemporary of Leibniz. Locke argued that the mind is in fact devoid of all knowledge or ideas at birth, a blank sheet or tabula rasa. It is argued that all ideas do in fact come via empiricism.

Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding suggests that the concept of universal assent in fact proves nothing, except perhaps that everyone is in agreement; in short universal assent proves that there is universal assent and nothing else. What is more Locke goes on to suggest that in fact there is no universal assent, even a phrase such as ‘What is, is’ is not universally assented to, infants and severely handicapped adults do not generally acknowledge this truism. Locke also attacks the idea that an innate idea can be imprinted on the mind without the owner realising it. To return to the song analogy, we may not be able to recall the entire song until we hear the first few words, however we were aware of the fact that we knew the song and that upon hearing the first few words we would be able to recall the rest. Locke would not accept the idea that we can know something yet not know that we knew it.

Locke ends his attack upon innate ideas by suggesting that the mind is a tabula rasa, or 'blank slate,' and that all ideas come from experience; in that all our knowledge is founded.

Scientific Ideas

In his Meno, Plato raises an important epistemological quandry. How is it that we have certain ideas which are not conclusively derivable from our environments? Noam Chomsky has taken this problem as a philosphical framework for the scientific enquiry into innatism. His linguistic theory, which derives from 18th century classical-liberal thinkers such as Willhelm Humboldt and Renée Descartes, attempts to explain in cognitive terms how we can develop knowledge of systems which are too rich and complex to be derived from our environment. One such example is our linguistic faculty. Our linguistic systems contain a systemic complexity which is could not be empirically derived: the environment is too variable and indeterminate to supply linguistic apparatus to the learning child. It follows that humans must be born with a certain predisposition, which is determinate and has a highly organized directive component, and enables the language learner to ascertain and categorize language heard into a system. Noam Chomsky cites as evidence for this theory the apparent invariability of human languages at a fundamental language. In this way, linguistics has provided a window into the human mind, and has established scientifically theories of innateness which were previously merely speculative.

The implication of Noam Chomsky's innatism is that at least a part of human knowledge is contained in cognitive predispositions, which are triggered and developed by the environment, but not determined by it. Parallels can then be drawn, on a purely speculative level, between our moral faculties and language. The relative consistency of fundamental notions of morality across cultures seems to produce convincing evidence for the Chomskyian thesis. In psychology, notions of archetypes such as developed by Carl Jung, suggest determinate identity perceptions.