Innate Knowledge

Innate Knowledge

Number

• Plato argued that concepts of numbers are innate as have no sense experience of them - have no knowledge of the number 2, only examples of 'two ness' (two tables) 
• I don't encounter number in the physical world. Must be innate. 

   Empiricist Response

• Acquire concept of numbers by abstraction. 
• We abstract knowledge from our encounters of collections - pulling from it the idea of, say, 3, as a copy of the common denominator. 

   Rationalist (Descartes) Response

• Can form concepts…