Innatism

Question 1

What is Leibniz’s 1st argument for innate knowledge?

Answer 1

To know what is necessary you must know what could be (i.e. other possible worlds).
But experience only the actual world. Therefore our knowledge of necessary truths is innate.

Question 2

What is Leibniz’s second argument for innate knowledge?

Answer 2

Experience only teaches us contingent truths (as the actual world could have been different). Therefore we our knowledge of necessary truths is innate.

Question 3

What is Leibniz’s third argument for innate knowledge?

Answer 3

Necessary truths are universal (i.e. generalisations with no exceptions).
But experience only shows particular instances (i.e. single cases). So experience can’t teach us necessary truths and so they must be innate.

Question 4

What is a criticism of innate knowledge from Locke?

Answer 4

If knowledge is innate then everyone has it.

To have innate knowledge you must be conscious of it.

So innate knowledge is knowledge which every human is conscious of.

But no knowledge is universal, babies and idiots don’t have knowledge of geometry for example.
Therefore there is no innate knowledge.

Question 5

Define innate knowledge.

Answer 5

Knowledge which is not acquired or learned through experience but is possessed from the beginning of the mind.

Question 6

Define necessary truth.

Answer 6

A truth that could only be true (i.e. in all
possible worlds the proposition is true).
E.g. A square is four-sided. (Could not be false).

Question 7

Define a priori knowledge.

Answer 7

Knowledge that may be justified without experience.

Question 8

Define contingent truth.

Answer 8

A truth that could have been false (i.e. in
some possible worlds, the proposition is false).
E.g. The sun is shining. (It might not have shone).

Question 9

What is Meno’s paradox of inquiry?

Answer 9

You cannot learn something if you already know it, but if you don’t know it you can not recognise it in order to learn it.

Question 10

What is Plato’s solution to Meno’s paradox

Answer 10

The Slave BOI argument.

Question 11

What it the slave boi argument?

Answer 11

Socrates asks a slave boy who has never been taught geometry answer questions about geometry. He answers correctly (too often for it to be luck) and he cannot have learned these answers from experience. Therefore, he knows some geometry and therefore, he has innate knowledge of geometry.

Question 12

What is Locke’s Tabula Rasa?

Answer 12

Minds begin as ‘blank tablets’ with no ideas or knowledge. Experience gives the mind ideas.

Question 13

What is an impression?

Answer 13

Sense experience.

Question 14

What is an idea?

Answer 14

An impression that has been copied and stored as an idea (i.e. a concept of a dog after seeing a dog).

Question 15

What is a simple idea?

Answer 15

Basic ideas which are not composed of other ideas e.g. concept of a shade of blue.

Question 16

What is a complex idea?

Answer 16

Ideas which are composed of two or more combined ideas e.g. a golden mountain = gold + mountain.

Question 17

What is a defence of innate knowledge by Leibniz?

Answer 17

Innate knowledge is potential knowledge,
Until it is triggered by reasoning or thinking about experience it is not fully formed,
e.g. compare the shape made by the veins of marble,
but it isn’t just learned from experience because the information we know (e.g. necessary truths) isn’t contained in experience.

Question 18

What is a defence of innate knowledge by Descartes?

Answer 18

Experience cannot justify beliefs to give us knowledge as we cannot disprove that we are being deceived.

Question 19

What is Hume’s missing shade of blue argument?

Answer 19

Hume’s missing shade of blue argument aims to show that it isn’t possible to gain the simple idea of a shade of colour without experiencing it because you can’t imagine the missing shade between a light and dark shade.

Question 20

Why can Hume’s missing shade of blue argument be used as a defence for innate knowledge?

Answer 20

Many argue that you could in fact imagine a missing shade of blue in a colour spectrum without experiencing it first.

Question 21

How can Hume’s fork be used against innate knowledge?

Answer 21

Experience gives us concepts (these are copies of sense impressions or combinations of them).
A priori reasoning allows us to understand these concepts. So we learn what they mean.
This knowledge is of relations of ideas or analytic truths (i.e. true by definition).
All analytic truths are necessary truths (because what is true by definition cannot be false).
Therefore we have a priori but not innate knowledge of necessary truths.