Are There Any Innate Ideas?

�It is an established opinion amongst men, that there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its first being, and brings into the world with it.’ [1]

Innate ideas are those principles that are found present in the mind at birth as opposed to those which arrive and develop throughout our lives as a result of sensory experience. Whether or not these innate principles exist, holds for many philosophers many important implications. There are many examples of philosophers who at various times in the history of philosophy have put forward this theory in order to locate the source of valid knowledge. Famously, Plato claimed that knowledge procured from the senses is invalid. That the data received is merely a reflection or a shadow of reality and that the pure, true image of reality is imprinted upon our souls before birth. Without the possibility of any innate notions his theory would be implicitly invalid. RenÐ"© Descartes is another of these examples. Descartes asserted in The Meditations that our notion of the existence of the self: cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), the existence of God, and some logical propositions like, from nothing comes nothing are all innate ideas and are all central to his philosophy. He believed that these innate ideas appear to us above all other notions in a way that is вЂ?clear and distinct’ [2] and that it is these ideas that are the source of all real knowledge. More recently, and in opposition to the already established rationalist movement, which bases itself on the belief that our knowledge of the world is acquired by the use of reason, and that sensory input is inherently unreliable, more a source of error than of knowledge, grew a school of philosophy known as empiricism. John Locke, who has come to be regarded as the chief founding father of this movement launched his attack on innate ideas when he published his Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1690, which is an extensive philosophical enquiry into the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations. In direct opposition to Locke was one of his greatest admirers and subsequently his primary critic, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who reacted to this essay by composing his own, New Essays on the Human Understanding. His essay was a systematical critique of Lock’s work in which he examined each single topic raised and then altered them according to his own views and principles. The result of this academic relationship is a systematically bi-polar account on the human understanding and for the purpose of this area of study, an account of innate ideas.

In fact, one of the striking features of this discussion is that it is an intellectual battle between a great rationalist and a great empiricist. Locke, the empiricist, believing that experience is richer than thinking, stating that �no mans knowledge here can go beyond his experience’ [3] and Leibniz, the rationalist believing that �there are two kinds of truth: truths of reasoning and truths of fact.’ [4] This crucial distinction separating the two philosophers provides us with the essence for their difference of opinion. The belief in innate ideas is a distinguishing feature of rationalism and the disbelief being distinguishing feature of empiricism. For this reason, I have chosen these two philosophers to guide the flow of this essay, with each philosopher contributing to the individual arguments involved in their final claim, in order to create a broad debate. Leibniz's New Essays on Human Understanding is a valuable commentary on Locke’s work which I hope will help to convey an objection to some of his theories.

Before continuing with the discussion it is necessary to establish a definition of the term idea. I shall use Locke’s definition of an idea as he provides a precise and simple one. For Locke an idea is quite simply �[that] which the mind can be employed about in thinking’. [5] That is to say, �whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks.’ [6] This will naturally include all notions, innate or otherwise, all concepts and all memories.

Both philosophers were not concerned, at his stage of their enquiry into the human understanding, with the nature of ideas in general but were concerned with the �original of those ideas, notions… which a man observes, and is conscious to himself he has in mind; and the ways whereby the understanding becomes furnished with them.’ [7] Locke believed that we rely upon experience as the source of ideas and knowledge. That the mind in its primary state is like a blank marble tablet which he called �tabula rasa’, [8] and it is through sensory experience our thoughts and notions are engraved upon it. Leibniz, however, believed that the soul inherently contains the sources of various notions and doctrines. When it comes to the senses, contrary to general rationalist theory, Leibniz does not disregard them, as many rationalists seem to do, instead he maintains that truths of fact depend on observational experience and even truths of reason are brought in to consciousness through the aid of the senses. It is, nevertheless, important to understand that Leibniz believes that although we would never have came to think a thing without the senses, the senses themselves play a catechistic not a determinative role. External objects merely remind us of the information we already contain on suitable occasions. Plato taught that such ideas were acquired by direct acquaintance (prior to birth) with the archetypes or Forms according to which all things are constructed. The senses are necessary for all our actual knowledge but they are not sufficient to provide it all, since they never give us anything but instances. These instances merely provide us with the impression that what we see conforms with reality and the laws of nature. We can see that whenever we take a limited number of instances from the past to prove a rule that pertains to every example we might see in the future we are often proven wrong. This method of induction merely shows us what happened in the past. The empiricist employs induction when his thoughts move from the particular to the general, or from what we have experienced to what we have not experienced. In the strictest sense, nothing can truly be proven by induction. �From this it appears that necessary truths, such as we find in pure mathematics and particularly in arithmetic and geometry, must have principles who’s proof does not depend on instances nor, consequently, on the testimony of the senses, even though without the senses it would not occur