The Idea of Innateness

This chapter attempts to untangle the debate surrounding innate ideas and innate knowledge. The controversy is as follows: Some philosophers, as well as linguists, psychologists, and others, allege that human beings have innate knowledge or innate ideas. Others deny it. Advocates of the doctrines of innate ideas and innate knowledge commonly take the notion of innateness itself to be unproblematic. They explain it with a few near synonyms, "inborn" or "unlearned," or with a metaphor or an allegory, and leave it at that. The doctrine's opponents often begin by puzzling over just what the doctrine could possibly mean. They go on to construct a variety of accounts, arguing against each in turn. The advocate's rejoinder, as often as not, is that he has been misunderstood.