1. Concept innatism I Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk

2. Concept innatism Some of our concepts are innate Concept empiricism: all our concepts are derived from experience. ‘Innate’: some concepts are somehow part of the structure of the mind rather than being gained through experience.

3. Locke against innate concepts Shared assumption: innate concepts are universal. Locke’s assumption: we are conscious of our concepts. Inference: an innate concept is one that every human being has and is conscious of. But newborn babies don’t have concepts –Certainly not IDENTITY or IMPOSSIBILITY –Locke gives these examples since innatists claimed that ‘It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be’ is innate knowledge.

4. Locke against innate concepts A concept can only be part of the mind without our being conscious of it if it is in memory. Memory is consciousness of the past. A concept that is not remembered is new to the mind – arising from sensation or reflection. Innate concepts are supposedly neither remembered nor new – how??

5. Rejecting Locke’s definition Locke is wrong to say that it is impossible for concepts to exist in the mind unless we are conscious of them. Innatism argues that, for some concepts, experience ‘triggers’ the concept, but can’t explain our having it –Triggering: we are predisposed to form just this concept. Babies don’t have certain concepts, because their development has not been triggered by experience.

6. Leibniz’s innatism Concepts such as IDENTITY and IMPOSSIBILITY are essential to all thought, but implicit. Innate concepts, before they are triggered and made explicit, exist as dispositions in the mind – Neither remembered nor new. Leibniz argues that every concept we gain by reflecting on our minds counts as innate –BEING, UNITY, SUBSTANCE, DURATION, CHANGE, ACTION, PERCEPTION and PLEASURE.

7. Objection This is a mistake: my existence and my perceptual abilities are innate, but the concepts I form through reflection are not –Reflection is a form of experience. This can’t be a general explanation of innate concepts, e.g. IMPOSSIBILITY.

8. Plato on universals Sense perception only gives us experience of particular things – this bus, that apple. We never experience, e.g. redness, per se; or beauty – only ever instances –Properties that can be possessed by more than one thing are ‘universals’. How can we acquire concepts of universals through sense experience?

9. Plato on universals Concepts of universals are concepts of perfections –E.g. BEAUTY is perfect beauty. But we only experience imperfection –Again, EQUALITY, but we only experience what is almost equal.

10. Objection We can derive concepts of universals by abstraction –‘ALMOST-EQUAL’ is primary and EQUAL is an abstraction –BEAUTY is an abstraction from what beautiful things have in common.

11. Innatism and the non- natural How does the mind gain innate concepts? Plato appeals to a life before birth, Leibniz to a complicated metaphysics that includes God. Concept empiricism argues it is better because simpler.