Lucia Oliveri

ONCONCEPTSANDIDEAS

Themes from G.W. Leibniz’s New Essays on Human Understanding1

0. Introduction The topic of my paper is the virtual controversy between Leibniz and Locke over concepts and ideas. At the end of the 17th century John Locke made a crucial contribution to semantics and philosophy: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The work represents a decisive turning point for the discussion about ideas and innatism. Indeed, Locke’s aim was to dismantle the Cartesian theory according to which ideas are innate in our soul. Against this onto-epistemological thesis, Locke maintains that all our knowledge starts off with experience: ideas are mental representations depending on subjects’ sensual experiences and reflection skills. Some years later, in his notes on Locke’s Essay, Leibniz writes that Locke dealt with a fundamental topic: human understanding and the limits of human knowledge (NE p. 4). All we can find out about the world is determined by answering the question about what we can know; nonetheless, Leibniz argues in favor of innate ideas. My thesis is that in his opinion Locke’s empiricism can be conciliated with the assumption that there are innate ideas. So, the question whether our mind is endowed from the beginning with some kind of inborn body of knowledge or whether it is fully furnished by experience has its roots in this debate, but it represents a central question for the contemporary debate about concept, language, and knowledge acquisition

1 In this paper I am going to use the following abbreviations: A (followed by volume number and pages according to the Akademie-Ausgabe edition): G.W. Leibniz, Sämtlichen Schriften und Briefe, Stuttgart 1926–2013; ED = Epistolica de historia etymologica dissertatio, in Gensini S., Il natural e il simbolico, Roma 1991, pp. 201-271; EHU = John Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. by Nidditch P.H. Oxford 1975; GP = Die Philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, vol. I-VII, ed. by C.I. Gerhardt, Berlin/Weidmann 1875– 1890; NE (followed by the page number according to the Akademie-Ausgabe edition) = G.W. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, translated and ed. by Remnant P. – Bennett J., Cambridge University Press 1981; QI = Quid sit Idea transl. in G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, trans. and ed. by Loemker L.E., Dordrecht 1969 pp. 207–208. 142 Lucia Oliveri as well. The material contribution given by Fodor to the psychology and philosophy of mind has posed the question whether it is even possible to learn lexical concepts. Fodor’s position seems, however, too strong inasmuch he draws the conclusion that if we learn concepts via hypothesis testing, then all lexical concepts, even concepts like DOORKNOB, must be virtually innate (Fodor 1998, 122–130). Although this kind of radical nativism is refused both from a psychological and philosophical point of view, Fodor’s approach seems to contain some core truth: not all knowledge can be acquired through experience only. This is the point that both philosophers and psychologists have been trying to prove, as in the works of Susan Carey (2011), Laurence and Margolis (2013), and others. On the other hand, the empiricist position has also been revitalized by the works of Barsalou (2008), and the attempt of Prinz (2004) to revise empiricism. Roughly speaking, the aim of these works is to ground cognition in the perceptual states of the subjects. In particular, Prinz explicitly claims that he wants to revise the empiricist position proposed by John Locke in his Essay (Prinz 2004, 2–3). This rough sketch shows how the contemporary debate is acknowledged as having its roots in the 17th century. The common reading of that debate remains, however, too superficial. Generally, according to a common reading, the difference between the two philosophers lies in the answer to the question whether the experience plays a role for concepts acquisition. While Locke maintains that experience is the only source of knowledge, Leibniz, as all other innatists, proposes an old, Platonist-Cartesian position according to which concepts are already in our soul. That’s it. I argue that this interpreta- tion is too rough and hasty. The core of the debate is, rather, the possibility of having experience, i. e., whether the assumption of bare faculties can explain the variety of our knowledge or whether we have to assume that a mind must be furnished with more »fine-grained« faculties. What I would like to show is that Leibniz presents some interesting critiques to the assumption that ideas are mental representations. Leibniz shows that without assuming some kind of innate ideas (and we will see what is to be understood under ideas), we were not able to explain how we can experience the world as we have known it, assume the categorization used in a society, and share concepts. Leibniz neatly presents the difficulties that arise by assuming a pure empiri- cist position about concepts acquisition. However, he is far from assuming a pure innatist position. His aim is to redefine innatism, so as to make it com- patible with concept acquisition and experience. Of course, the debate that took place in the 17th century cannot offer answers for the contemporary problems; but a more thorough reading of that debate could, as an ambitious aim, shed light on some contemporary questions or, as a more modest aim, simply revise some crystallized prejudices about the classical theory in order to avoid any rough and hasty interpretation; for example, of the assumption