Innateness, Philosophical Issues About

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE Galley: Article - 00167 provided by Caltech Authors - Main UNCORRECTED PROOFS . Published with minor changes as 'Innateness – Philosophical Issues about,’ in D. Chalmers (ed.) Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Macmillan Publishing Co., 2003. Level 2 Innateness, Philosophical Issues about Fiona Cowie, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA CONTENTS Introduction Impact of cognitive science on issues about Central philosophical issues about innateness innateness Theories of innateness Philosophical problems about innateness cover banner: Chomsky defending the notion that our conceptual and empirical issues regarding the claim knowledge of language is substantially innate, that concepts or beliefs are innate, inborn, or gen- and Fodor arguing that the vast majority of our etically determined. concepts are innate (e.g. Chomsky, 1986 and 1990; Fodor, 1981 and 1998).Notable critics of these vari- INTRODUCTION ous ìnnateness hypotheses' have included the historical figures Aristotle (384±322 bc), John Locke 0167.001 Many different kinds of traits are claimed to be (1632±1704), and David Hume (1711±1776). innate in us and other animals.We speak of a termite's innate nest-building behavior, a llama's innate hairiness, a German Shepherd dog's innate CENTRAL PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES tendency to hip dysplasia, a person's innate beauty. ABOUT INNATENESS Philosophical interest in innateness, however, has The central philosophical question ± indeed, the 0167.003 centered around the innateness or not of various central question about innateness is: what, if any- mental properties.Probably because of the issue's thing, is innate? To aid in answering this question, traditional connections with epistemological prob- philosophers have asked a prior question: what is lems like justification and a priori knowledge, innateness and why should we care about it? Then, philosophical attention has focused on the innate- to help in answering this question, they have fur- ness (or not) of our ìdeas' or representations (e.g. ther inquired: what do particular nativists (i.e. de- concepts and beliefs) and, to a lesser extent, our fenders of an innateness hypothesis) mean when cognitive abilities (e.g. mechanisms of learning). they call some idea or capacity ìnnate'? Thus, the This article, too, will focus on the innateness of three main philosophical issues about innateness mental items (ideas or capacities) rather than phys- are: ical features or behaviors. 0167.002 The first known philosophical claims about the 1.the interpretive issue: what do nativists mean by the innateness of concepts and beliefs were made by claim that such and such mental item is innate? Plato (428±348 bc) in his dialogues Phaedo (74b±75e) 2.the explanatory issue: what is innateness, and what and Meno (80d±e).(See Grube, 1997.)He argues (in does an idea's being innate enable us to explain? 3.the factual issue: which ideas (concepts, beliefs, know- the voice of Socrates) that since some of the con- ledge) and cognitive or behavioral capacities are cepts and knowledge we possess could not have innate? entered the mind through sense experience or as a result of teaching, they must be innate, that is ac- The interpretive issue arises because it is frequently 0167.004 quired by our souls prior to our birth.So-called very difficult to tell exactly what a person means learning, he argues, is really a process of recollec- when she claims that certain ideas are innate. tion: our experience reminds us of things we al- People often appeal to metaphors and analogies in ready know but have forgotten.Later defenders of explaining what innateness is, and these often sup- the view that certain ideas are innate include the port conflicting interpretations.For example, Des- philosophers ReneÂ Descartes (1596±1650), Gottfried cartes sometimes says that concepts or beliefs are Leibniz (1646±1716), and Immanuel Kant (1724± innate in the same way that certain diseases (like 1804).Most recently, two cognitive scientists, the gout) are innate in certain families (Descartes, linguist Noam Chomsky and the philosopher Jerry 1985).This argument, together with the fact that Fodor, have taken up arms under the nativist many of the concepts and beliefs he discusses are Galley: Article - 00167 2 Innateness, Philosophical Issues about not possessed by babies or very small children, about concept acquisition, because it is quite con- suggests that in his view, innate concepts or beliefs sistent with the typical empiricist's view that are not present at birth but exist as potentialities or concepts are learned.(Èmpiricist' is the name dispositions to acquire ideas during the course of given to opponents of innate ideas.) development.(See Stich, 1975.)Chomsky, by con- The explanatory issue thus arises in part because 0167.006 trast, claims that principles of Universal Grammar the interpretive issues are not clear.In discussing (UG) are innately represented in the human `lan- the innateness of various concepts, beliefs, or cap- guage organ' and are crucially implicated in the acities we need to be explicit about what notion of process of language acquisition.This assertion sug- innateness we are invoking.We also need to be gests that, for Chomsky, innate knowledge of UG is clear about why that notion is important: we need no mere disposition but is encoded in the brain at to understand what innateness, so understood, ex- birth in a robust and causally efficacious form. plains.For too often it is assumed that the innate- Fodor (1981), to take another example, has likened ness of a trait has implications which, upon innate concepts to imprinted behaviors, suggesting examination, it does not have.Herrnstein and that for him, innate ideas are not learned but are Murray (1994), for instance, argue that IQ is sub- merely `triggered' by some appropriate releasing stantially innate and that certain ethnic groups are stimulus.It is unclear that the same or even a simi- inherently deficient in intelligence, concluding lar notion of innateness is at work in these three thence that social and educational programs authors, and the interpretive problem only in- aimed at those groups are ineffective.But as Block creases as the work of additional nativists is exam- (1995) has responded, since ìnnate' for Herrnstein ined.(See Cowie, 1999, ch.1, for more on the and Murray means something like `highly herit- interpretive issue.) able', this conclusion does not follow even if the 0167.005 While it is, of course, important to understand facts are as they claim.For the heritability of a trait what theorists (past or present) have thought is a measure of the extent to which variance in the about innateness, the interpretive issue is primarily trait in a population is correlated with genetic (as of interest to cognitive science because it bears opposed to environmental) variation, and high her- on (2), the explanatory issue.Innateness is most itability does not imply imperviousness to (or even commonly invoked to explain how an idea was difficulty of) change by means of environmental acquired: Meno's untutored slave knows Pythagor- manipulations.In the next section of this article, as's theorem because it is innate; we know that we will look at a number of different notions of 2 2 4 because we have innate knowledge of innateness used in the contemporary and historical mathematics; people believe in God because of an literatures and examine their explanatory abilities. innate concept of the deity.The fact that innate Once one has clarified one's explanatory goals 0167.007 ideas are often contrasted with those that are and chosen an appropriate notion of innateness, learned or otherwise acquired as a result of experi- the question arises: what traits, if any, are innate ence has led to the notorious `nature versus nurture' (in that sense)? This is the third, the factual issue, debate about whether our genes or our experience about innateness with which philosophers have are responsible for our mental lives.This debate is been concerned.In the final section, we will look generally fruitless for two reasons.First, everyone at what sorts of evidence bear on this factual ques- knows that both experience and the genes are im- tion, focusing in particular on the ways in which plicated in cognitive development: the opposition cognitive science plays a role in determining which between nature and nurture is overstated.Second, of our ideas are innate. participants in nature versus nurture debates often talk past one another, simply because there are so THEORIES OF INNATENESS many different understandings of innateness at play in the literature.In order to avoid such unpro- Philosophical investigations of innateness have 0167.008 ductive arguments, therefore, is vital to be very revealed that there are about as many different clear about what notion of innateness is being things meant by the claim that an idea is innate as used in a specific discussion.For example, it there are theorists making such claims.In this would be a serious mistake to read Fodor's claim section, we will survey some of these different that most concepts are innate as asserting (in Carte- notions of innateness and see what sorts of explan- sian vein) merely that we have dispositions to ations they figure in. acquire concepts during the course of development. The latter claim, while true enough, trivializes what is meant to be a substantive ± indeed, radical ± claim Galley:

Load more