Concept Innatism

?
  • Created by: Elena.S
  • Created on: 16-05-17 15:11

Concept Innatism

Advantages

  • P: clear and distinct ideas; E: there are certain substances that change property so how do we still recognise it for what it is?: E: Descartes' wax - solid and melted wax are completely different so how do we still know it's wax without innate concepts?
  • P: Trademark Argument: E: causal principle states effects cannot be greater than causes; E: as imperfect humans, how did we think of a perfect God? Only he can do that and left us with idea of him so we know who created us
  • P: rationalism; E: possible to have concepts from introspection + reason; E: rationalists
  • P: realm of forms; E: souls derived from realm of forms in which pure copies of innate concepts exist; E: beauty, justice, numbers etc (Plato)
  • P: anti-reliance; E: internal structures; E: Kant's internal structure + Chomsky's deep grammar

Disadvantages

  • P: Ockham's Razor; E: unnecessary to say innate concepts existing when it is easier to just say we get them from sense experience; E: Locke's empiricism
  • P: sense experience; E: concepts seemingly from introspection require some kind of sense experience; E: Locke - argument of maths from abstraction
  • P: anti-realm of forms; E: we derive concepts from exposure to examples + abstractions; E: maths i.e two trees
  • P: reliance on supernatural; E: how do we have innate concepts?

Evaluation

Concept innatism is strong against criticisms

Comments

No comments have yet been made