Reason as a source of Knowledge - Innatism

Question 1

a priori knowledge

Answer 1

Knowledge of propositions that do not require (sense) experience to be known to be true or false.

Question 2

a posterior knowledge

Answer 2

Knowledge of propositions that can only be known to be true or false through sense-experience.

Question 3

What is innatism? (knowledge)

Answer 3

The claim that there is at least some innate knowledge, not derived from experience, but somehow part of the structure of the mind.

Question 4

What type of knowledge is the innatism vs. classical empiricism debate about?

Answer 4

innate propositional knowledge

Question 5

What is propositional knowledge?

Answer 5

Knowing ‘that’ some claim - a proposition - is true or false, e.g: ‘I know Paris is the capital of France.’

Question 6

What is rationalism?

Answer 6

there are some claims that we can get by pure reasoning.
–> Rationalists claim that we have knowledge of some synthetic propositions that do not depend on sense experience.

Question 7

What are the two ways rationalism claims we get knowledge that does not depend on sense - experience?

Answer 7

1. Rational intuition and deduction: we have this to grasp certain truths.
2. Innate: we know some truths innately.

Question 8

What is empircism?

Answer 8

Claims that all our knowledge directly or indirectly comes from perception.

Question 9

two arguements for innatism: Plato’s Slave boy arguement

Answer 9

Plato argues that all learning is a form of recalling knowledge from before we were born, so in other words, we’re born with innate knowledge and we just need to remember it.

Question 10

Plato’s slave boy example to prove his theory

Answer 10

Plato shows how Meno’s slave - a boy who has never been taught geometry- is able to understand a geometry proof.
Socrates draws a square on the ground that is 2x2 ft
Meno’s slave agrees its area is 4 sq ft.
Socrates then draws another square of 8 ft.
Socrates then asks a series of questions
Meno’s slave answers the questions correctly and realises that the side of the square with 8 sq ft will be equal to the diagonal of the original 2 x 2 ft square.

Question 11

What is the point of Plato’s example?

Answer 11

Since Meno’s slave boy is able to correctly answer Socrates’ questions without experience of geometry, his correct knowledge here must be innate.

Question 12

Empiricist responses to Plato’s slave boy argument

Answer 12

According to empiricists, it does not have to be the case that the knowledge is innate but instead, it is possible that Socrates is just teaching the slave boy and because he is intelligent, he is able to learn from the experience and arrive at the correct answer. Therefore, according to empiricists Plato’s example does not prove that there is innate knowledge.

Question 13

contingent truths

Answer 13

A proposition that could be either true or false, a state of affairs that may or may not hold, depending on how the world actually is.
e.g: there are trees

Question 14

necessary truths

Answer 14

A proposition that must be true, a state of affairs that must hold. If false, implies a contradiction
e.g: geometry and other maths

Question 15

two arguments for innatism: Liebniz arguments from necessary truths

Answer 15

A posteriori experiences only tell us about how things are on any occasion (contingent truths); it cannot teach us how things must be.
But no amount of experience can tell us how things must be.
Necessary truths like maths are inductive truths and therefore must be necessary rather than contingent.
So, Leibniz argues that knowledge of necessary truths is innate; we know them from looking inward on what is already within us. Sense experience can help to uncover it but it can never teach us innate knowledge.

Question 16

What is Locke’s view on innate knowledge?

Answer 16

Locke, an empiricist, argues that we do not have any innate knowledge. He believes we are born with minds that were ‘tabula rasa’ - blank slates.
Locke understands innate ideas as ‘thoughts printed onto the soul at the point of existence, which it brings into the world with it.’

Question 17

What were the propositions that were being discussed at the time .

Answer 17

• ‘Whatever is, is’
  -‘It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’

Question 18

Locke’s arguments against innate knowledge: 1) Universal knowledge

Answer 18

Locke believed that if there were innate knowledge, it would be universally assented to.
P1) If there is innate knowledge, it is universal
P2) For an idea to be part of the mind, the mind must be conscious of it
C) Therefore, innate knowledge is the knowledge that every human being is or has been conscious of.
P3) Children and idiots do not know things and do not understand them.
C2) Therefore, these claims are not innate
P4) These are claims that are universally accepted
C3) Therefore, there is no innate knowledge.

Question 19

Locke argues for ‘other explanation’

Answer 19

Locke argues that in addition to this, even if there were some knowledge that is universally assesented to, this doesn’t necessarily make it innate. There may be some other explanation, some other general experience which all people have to make it known to all.

Question 20

Leibniz’s reply to Locke’s (Universal knowledge)

Answer 20

Leibniz argues that Locke has not understood the sense in which knowledge can be innate.
Locke’s theory that ideas must be conscious has misled him, we can know things w/o being conscious of them.

Question 21

How does Leibniz understand knowledge?

Answer 21

‘a disposition, an aptitude, a preformation’ in the mind towards developing and understanding and knowing certain thoughts.

Question 22

explain Leibniz’s unconscious knowledge argument- apply to impossibility identity

Answer 22

Leibniz rejects Locke’s claim that ‘it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’ is not innate.
He argues that while we may not be aware of it, the mind relies on principles such as impossibility, contradiction and identity, which the claim is based on, constantly.
For example ‘white is not black’ Leibniz accepts that the claim is not innate but the applications of the necessary truths ‘it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’ are.
Therefore, we don’t have to be conscious of it to have knowledge.

Question 23

Memory, as an objection to Locke’s arguments against innate knowledge.

Answer 23

It is not strange that some knowledge is unconscious. We use memory to store ideas and recall them in time when needed. Memory demonstrates we can know things without being conscious of them and that retrieving knowledge sometimes requires assistance, like Socrates’ questions aiding in the retrieval of the slave boy’s innate knowledge of necessary truths of maths.
EMPRICISTS may respond by saying memory requires the subject to have been conscious of the knowledge at some point but Leibniz rejects that accepting that what we know unconsciously must always have once been conscious or gained from experience.

Question 24

Locke’s objection to questioning what the definition of knowledge is

Answer 24

Locke anticipates this and says if we are not consciously aware of “innate” claims like ‘it’s impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’ and ‘whatever is, is’ from birth, there must be some point at which we become conscious of them, he questions when this is.

Question 25

When are the point that Locke questions are when we gain cobnsiousness of innate knowledge?

Answer 25

1. Innate knowledge was gained before the use of reason -> this cannot be the case since children do not know innate knowledge.
2. Innate knowledge were gained during the use of reason ->still cannot be the case since even when children are able to reason enough to do basic maths, they still cannot grasp necessary truths.
3. Innate knowledge were gained after the use of reason -> would be indistinguishable from the basic practice of learning anything. If this were the case, then everything would classify as innate knowledge.

Question 26

What does Locke conlude about the definition of innate knowledge?

Answer 26

Locke concludes that there is no satisfactory definition of ‘innate’ that can be used to defend the claim that there is innate knowledge.

Question 27

How does Leibniz respond to Locke questioning whether innate knowledge is just the capcity to learn?

Answer 27

Leibniz contrasts, that while innate knowledge does not exist ‘fully formed’ or evidently in our mind, it is more than a capacity. He says ‘The actual knowledge of necessary truths isn’t innate. What is innate is what might be called the potential knowledge of them.’ He argues that in gaining knowledge of necessary truths, the mind must look inward onto itself with the prompts of sense experience.

Question 28

What is Leibniz’s analogy of veins in marble?

Answer 28

Veins exist within the marble before they are uncovered by the sculptor. In the same way it takes tools and hard work to carve at the marble to reveal the veins, it takes work to uncover what is within us, but what is uncovered was not learned from sense experience, just as the veins were not draw by the tools.

Question 29

What does Leibniz’s marble analogy say about the relationship between innate knowledge and sense data?

Answer 29

Sense experience is necessary but not sufficient for innate knowledge. What shows that the knowledge is innate is that experience cannot be a source of innate knowledge. Therefore, Locke’s claim that we have the capacity to gain knowledge cannot be correct. Rather, the claim is that our mind’s our predisposed to know necessary truths.

Question 30

How are innate ideas related to innate concepts?

Answer 30

If some propositional knowledge is innate, then some concepts must be innate, because propositional knowledge is formulated in terms of concepts.

Question 31

Why does Locke argue against innate concepts

Answer 31

If he manages to disprove innate concepts, he will also succeed in disproving the existence of innate knowledge.

Question 32

What are Locke’s three arguments against innate concepts

Answer 32

• Newborn babies
• the concept of God
• Memory

Question 33

Explain Locke’s newborn baby argument against innate concepts

Answer 33

Have no concepts beyond ones derived from their experiences (warmth hunger) Certainly we can’t think that they are familiar or conscious of concepts like IMPOSSIBILITY IDENTITY.

Question 34

Explain Locke’s ‘concept of God’ argument against innate concepts

Answer 34

Same as universal knowledge, not everyone (atheists and babies) have the concept of God, so this can’t be innate either.

Question 35

Explain ‘memory’ argument against innate concepts

Answer 35

To remember something is to be conscious of it in the past. If you aren’t remembering a concept, then it is new to your mind- arising from an impression of sensation or reflection. Innate ideas would have to be neither remembered nor new, how can there be such a thing?

Question 36

Leibniz’s defence of innate concepts: newborn babies

Answer 36

HIS DEFENCES ARE LITCH THE SAME AS HIS ONES FOR IDEAS
Yes although babies cannot articulate these concepts
From birth, we have a disposition to form these concepts, they are essential to all thoughts even though they take time for us to make them explicit in our thinking.

Question 37

Leibniz’s defence of innate concepts: the concept of God

Answer 37

The lack of the word for God does not mean we lack the concept of it, our minds are receptive to the idea of it.

Question 38

Leibniz’s defence of innate concepts: memory

Answer 38

Leibniz repeats his theory that innate knowledge and concepts exist as dispositions in the mind- so neither neither new, in the sense of originating outside the mind, nor remembered.