This paper provides a rigorous defense of innate true belief in the Meno, to my knowledge, the first of its kind. While several commentators have proposed innate true belief in the past, the position has never been defended or explained in detail. Instead, the most thorough discussions of Plato’s innatism have opted for different innate objects. I defend my proposal against these recent alternatives by showing that the passages often thought to imply innate knowledge can be read in other ways. (...) I then argue that they should be so read, because of an “awareness condition” Plato had on knowledge at the time. (shrink)

Externalism is the view that the intentional content of a mental state supervenes on its relations to objects in the extramental world. Nativism is the view that some of the innate states of the mind/brain have intentional content. I consider both “causal” and “nomic” versions of externalism, and argue that both are incompatible with nativism. I consider likely candidates for a compatibilist position – a nativism of “narrow” representational states, and a nativism of the contentless formal (...) “vehicles” of representational states. I argue that “narrow nativism” is either too implausible to appeal to the nativist – because it entails that innate representational states are lost as the mind becomes more experienced, or too costly to appeal to the externalist – because a reasonable version of it requires the analytic-synthetic distinction. Finally, I argue that “syntactic nativism” is indistinguishable from classical anti-nativist empiricism, given the latter’s broad tolerance for innate implementation of psychological principles and mechanisms. (shrink)

Historically, the dispute between empiricists and nativists in philosophy and cognitive science has concerned human and animal minds (Margolis and Laurence in Philos Stud: An Int J Philos Anal Tradit 165(2): 693-718, 2013, Ritchie in Synthese 199(Suppl 1): 159–176, 2021, Colombo in Synthese 195: 4817–4838, 2018). But recent progress has highlighted how empiricist and nativist concerns arise in the construction of artificial systems (Buckner in From deep learning to rational machines: What the history of philosophy can teach us about the (...) future of artificial intelligence. Oxford University Press.). This paper uses nativism and empiricism to address questions about the nature of artificial intelligence and its trajectory. It begins by defining the nativism/empiricism debate in terms of the generality of a system. Nativist systems have initial states with domain-specific features; empiricist systems have initial states with only domain-general features. With the debate framed in this way, it then explores a variety of arguments for nativism and empiricism in AI. These arguments revolve around two different questions which must be distinguished: whether nativism the only possible approach to developing human-level AI (HLAI); and whether nativism is the most practical approach to developing HLAI. On the first question, it argues that nativism is quite clearly not the only possible approach to developing HLAI, as is sometimes suggested. It argues that existing arguments for the necessity of nativism are unconvincing, because they analogize from poverty of the stimulus arguments about humans, while AIs often have access to much more data than humans. Then it argues that the case of evolution gives us a compelling argument against nativism. On the second, practical question, the paper argues that there is a tradeoff between the advantages of encoding innate machinery directly, and the advantages of evolving or learning it. However, as the past decade has shown, empiricism is a much more viable path to greater capability levels, given the ‘bitter lesson’ (Sutton in _Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction_. MIT press.) that encoding the ‘correct’ knowledge in AI systems is perennially outperformed by more empiricist methods that leverage large-scale data and computation. (shrink)

Radical Concept Nativism (RCN) is the doctrine that most of our concepts are innate. In this paper I will argue in favour of RCN by developing a speculative account of concept acquisition that has considerable nativist credentials and can be defended against the most familiar anti-nativist objections. The core idea is that we have a whole battery of hard-wired dispositions that determine how we group together objects with which we interact. In having these dispositions we are effectively committed to (...) an implicit conceptual scheme and acquiring concepts is a matter of labelling the elements of that scheme. (shrink)

In the 17th century, there was a lively debate in the intellectual circles with which Locke was familiar, revolving around the question whether the human mind is furnished with innate ideas. Although a few scholars declared that there is no good reason to believe, and good reason not to believe, in the existence of innate ideas, the vast majority took for granted that God, in his infinite goodness and wisdom, has inscribed in human minds innate principles that constitute the foundation (...) of knowledge, as well in practical as in theoretical matters. It was in opposition to the latter group, which included Descartes, leading Anglican divines, and the Cambridge Platonists, that Locke directed his attack upon innate ideas in the first book of the Essay.1 In the minds of those who weighed in on one side or the other, the importance of the controversy related to epistemological, moral, and religious doctrines. At the epistemological level, innatists (or, as I will also call them, nativists) held that all knowledge of the natural and supernatural world available to humans is based on fundamental “speculative” axioms, theoretical principles that neither require nor are capable of proof. These principles, such as the causal principle – that nothing comes from nothing – or the principle of non-contradiction – that nothing can both be and not be at the same time, were taken to be both universal and necessary, and hence impossible to derive from experience. To the mind of an innatist, if these principles are not based on experience and are not (as chimerical ideas were thought to be) constructed out.. (shrink)

In their recent and influential book Rethinking Innateness, Jeffrey Elman and his co‐authors argue that evidence from neurobiology provides us with grounds to reject representational nativism (RN). I argue that Elman et al.’s argument fails because it makes a series of unwarranted assumptions about RN and about the extent to which neurobiological data constrain claims about the innateness of mental rep‐resentations. Moreover, I briefly discuss how we ought to understand RN and argue that on two prima facie plausible approaches, (...) far from refuting nativism, the evidence from neurobiology may not even be relevant to the question of whether or not RN is true. (shrink)

This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information, and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal, or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interest from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and sociobiology (concerning the mental powers of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and computer science. While primary emphasis will (...) be placed upon theoretical, conceptual, and epistemological aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimen tal, and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. The present volume reflects the kind of insights that can be obtained when research workers in philosophy, artificial intelligence, and computer science explore problems of common concern. The issues here tend to fall into two broad but varied sets, namely: those concerned with content and concepts, on the one hand, and those concerned with semantics and epistemology, on the other. The collection begins with a prologue that focuses upon the relations between connectionism and alternative conceptions of nativism and ends with an epilogue that examines the significance of alternative conceptions of the Frame Problem for artificial intelligence. Because these papers are rich and diverse, they ought to appeal to a wide and heterogeneous audience. J.H.F. (shrink)

Analogical cognition refers to the ability to detect, process, and learn from relational similarities. The study of analogical and similarity cognition is widely considered one of the ‘success stories’ of cognitive science, exhibiting convergence across many disciplines on foundational questions. Given the centrality of analogy to mind and knowledge, it would benefit philosophers investigating topics in epistemology and the philosophies of mind and language to become familiar with empirical models of analogical cognition. The goal of this essay is to describe (...) recent empirical work on analogical cognition as well as model applications to philosophical topics. Topics to be discussed include the epistemological distinction between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge, the debate between empiricists and nativists, the frame problem, expertise, creativity and autism, cognitive architecture, and relational knowledge. Particular attention is given to Dedre Gentner and colleague’s structure-mapping theory – the most developed and widely accepted model of analogical cognition. (shrink)

This essay highlights the influential role played by epistemological nativism in the disciplining of tradition in modern China. Chinese epistemological nativism is the view that the articulation and development of China’s intellectual heritage must draw exclusively on the paradigms and norms of so-called indigenous/local or China-based perspectives. Two case studies are presented to reveal some of the conundrums that confront the disciplining of tradition in modern China: Chinese philosophy and guoxue or National Studies. These case studies (...) also provide an opportunity to reflect on the implications this has for tradition’s place in Chinese modernity.In the case of the discipline of Chinese philosophy the role of epistemological nativism is evident in widespread calls to return Chinese philosophy to some pristine form, predating its encounter with “Western” philosophy; and in the continued refusal to acknowledge and engage the intellectual diversity of the traditions that contribute to Chinese philosophy’s composite identity. To illustrate this latter claim, I focus on the prominent example of Buddhist philosophy and its Indian roots.As for the second case study, National Studies has been revived as a discipline, marked as distinct from all other disciplines, because of claims that it represents a holistic body of learning. National Studies’ connection with various traditions of premodern learning is premised on the romantic conceit that these traditions of premodern learning somehow constituted a holistic, even organic, body of learning. The conundrum for contemporary guoxue protagonists, who present guoxue as a holistic body of learning, is that the stronger the claim made that guoxue warrants disciplinary status—and hence to be subjected to disciplinary subdivision—the weaker the case that guoxue is a holistic body of learning. This situation is further exacerbated by the fact that guoxue is an invented tradition. (shrink)

Hume bequeathed to rational intuitionists a problem concerning moral judgment and the will – a problem of sufficient severity that it is still cited as one of the major reasons why intuitionism is untenable. 1 Stated in general terms, the problem concerns how an intuitionist moral theory can account for the intimate connection between moral judgment and moral motivation. One reason that this is still considered to be a problem for intuitionists is that it is widely assumed that the early (...) intuitionists made little progress towards solving it. In this essay, I wish to challenge this assumption by examining one of the more subtle intuitionist responses to Hume, viz., that offered by Thomas Reid. For reasons that remain unclear to me, Reid's response to Hume on this issue has been almost entirely neglected. I shall argue that it is nonetheless one that merits our attention, for at least two reasons. In the first place, Reid's response to Hume's challenge to rational intuitionism bears a close affinity to the type of response that he offers to Hume's broadly skeptical challenge to realist views regarding our perception of the external world. Since Reid's strategy in the latter case is widely regarded as exhibiting significant promise, it is natural to wonder whether, when applied to the moral domain, this type of strategy displays similar promise. 2 I will suggest that it does. That is, I will suggest that since Reid's broadly nativist position in perception is one well worth considering, then so also is his broadly nativist account of moral motivation. Second, Reid's position regarding moral motivation represents an intriguing attempt to blend a broadly intuitionist view with important insights from the sentimentalist tradition. In this respect, Reid's view is a genuine hybrid position unlike that offered by other intuitionists such as Richard Price. The synthetic character of Reid's position, I claim, gives it a unique type of theoretical richness, since it incorporates some very attractive features of both rational intuitionism and sentimentalism. (shrink)

: Plato's founding position in the tradition of epistemological nativism has been underestimated. In addition to his notorious, naively non-dispositional model of learning as recollection, Plato offers several neglected dispositional models of innate ideas, including Diotima's model of mental pregnancy in the Symposium, in which maturing mental embryos begin not with the actual content of the knowledge to be acquired, but with a specific potentiality that must be actualized through series of specific kinds of experience and mental activity. (...) A survey of dialogues from Meno to Phaedrus shows that Plato typically favors such dispositional models, and that he raises doubts about the non-dispositional details of the recollection model where it occurs. (shrink)

James Van Cleve here shows why Thomas Reid (1710-96) deserves a place alongside the other canonical figures of modern philosophy. He expounds Reid's positions and arguments on a wide range of topics, taking interpretive stands on points where his meaning is disputed and assessing the value of his contributions to issues philosophers are discussing today. -/- Among the topics Van Cleve explores are Reid's account of perception and its relation to sensation, conception, and belief; his nativist account of the origin (...) of the concepts of space and power; his attempt to clear the way for the belief that the things we directly perceive are external things, not ideas in our minds; his stand on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities; his account of his externalist reply to philosophical skepticism, his volitional theory of action, his use of the distinction between event causation and agent causation to understand freedom of the will, and his criticism of Hume and anticipation of Moore on the analysis of moral judgment. -/- The most comprehensive work on Reid in a quarter century, this book will be welcomed by students of early modern philosophy, epistemology, the philosophy of perception, and the philosophy of action. (shrink)

Enquiries into the possible nature and scope of innate knowledge never proceed in an empirical vaccuum. Instead, such conjectures are informed by a theory (perhaps only tacitly endorsed) concerning probable representational form. Classical approaches to the nativism debate often assume a quasi-linguistic form of knowledge representation and deliniate a space of options (concerning the nature and extent of innate knowledge) accordingly. Recent connectionist theorizing posits a different kind of represenational form, and thus determines a different picture of the space (...) of possible nativisms. (shrink)

The phenomenon of language, being so familiar to us, still possesses unknown nature, origin, and, as we may say, function. For Plato, language was the way to cognition of the Universe. The phi- losophy of language, which was primarily initiated by Plato in his “Cratylus”, still has not ob- tained answers to the questions settled by great Greek thinker. In fact, it just acquired various solutions among different approaches during all four ages of understanding, namely Ancient, Scholastic, Modern and Post-modern (...) periods. The article is supplemented with excerpts from the first Ukrainian translation of Proclus’ “Commentary on Plato’s “Cratylus”. The specifics of the style and vocabulary of the work is emphasized in the context of interpretation into Ukrainian. Historical and cultural context of Proclus’ works in general and particularly its “Commentaries” is addressed, and the main terminological system of his works is analyzed. Ukrainian equivalents are suggested. Some common features as well as discrepancies in Neoplatonist and Peripatetic approach are considered in the context of solutions to the same questions. Contrastive analysis of the “Commentary on Plato’s “Cratylus” with prior mythological context as well as with fol- lowing scholastic teaching is conducted in philosophical and linguistic aspects. The importance of problems placed by Plato in the field of epistemology and philosophy of language is addressed. Analogies with contemporary approach to linguistic and philosophical questions are considered in the scope of nativism and empiricism. Immutability of questions and mutability of generations and approaches is shown. The importance of previous works for the next development of con- temporary thought is emphasized. (shrink)

An argument that nativism is true and important but mysterious, examining the particular case of ideas of sensible qualities. In this book, Colin McGinn presents a concise, clear, and compelling argument that the origins of knowledge are innate—that nativism, not empiricism, is correct in its theory of how concepts are acquired. McGinn considers the particular case of sensible qualities—ideas of color, shape, taste, and so on. He argues that these, which he once regarded as the strongest case for (...) the empiricist position, are in fact not well explained by the empiricist account that they derive from interactions with external objects. Rather, he contends, ideas of sensible qualities offer the strongest case for the nativist position—that a large range of our knowledge is inborn, not acquired through the senses. Yet, McGinn cautions, how this can be is deeply problematic; we have no good theories about how innate knowledge is possible. Innate knowledge is a mystery, though a fact. McGinn describes the traditional debate between empiricism and nativism; offers an array of arguments against empiricism; constructs an argument in favor of nativism; and considers the philosophical consequences of adopting the nativist position, discussing perception, the mind–body problem, the unconscious, metaphysics, and epistemology. (shrink)

Contemporary research on mindreading or theory of mind has resulted in three major findings: There is a difference in the age of passing of the elicited-response false belief task and its spontaneous–response version; 15-month-olds pass the latter while the former is passed only by 4-year-olds. Linguistic and social factors influence the development of the ability to mindread in many ways. There are cultures with folk psychologies significantly different from the Western one, and children from such cultures tend to show different (...) timetables of mindreading development. The traditional accounts of the data are nativism, rational constructivism, and two-systems theory. In this paper, we offer criticism of these traditional cognitivist accounts and explore an alternative, action-based framework. We argue that even though they all seem to explain the above empirical data, there are other, theoretical reasons why their explanations are untenable. Specifically, we discuss the problem of foundationalism and the related problem of innateness. Finally, we explore an alternative, action-based framework that avoids these theoretical limitations and offer an interpretation of the empirical data from that perspective. (shrink)

I identify two reasons for believing in the objectivity of mathematical knowledge: apparent objectivity and applications in science. Focusing on arithmetic, I analyze platonism and cognitive nativism in terms of explaining these two reasons. After establishing that both theories run into difficulties, I present an alternative epistemological account that combines the theoretical frameworks of enculturation and cumulative cultural evolution. I show that this account can explain why arithmetical knowledge appears to be objective and has scientific applications. Finally, I (...) will argue that, while this account is compatible with platonist metaphysics, it does not require postulating mind-independent mathematical objects. (shrink)

Through a collection of original essays from leading philosophical scholars, _Stich and His Critics_ provides a thorough assessment of the key themes in the career of philosopher Stephen Stich. Provides a collection of original essays from some of the world's most distinguished philosophers Explores some of philosophy's most hotly-debated contemporary topics, including mental representation, theory of mind, nativism, moral philosophy, and naturalized epistemology.

In contemporary philosophy and psychology there is an ongoing debate about Theory of Mind , which mainly concerns our ability to understand other people. For almost two decades, authors have argued in favour of a crucial relationship between language and children's development of ToM. Studies based on verbal tasks suggest that children possess a ToM not earlier than about the age of four. Nevertheless, in recent years, this paradigm has been almost replaced by a 'new' nativist paradigm conceiving of mental (...) capacities as part of our purely biological inheritance. In contrast with the traditional tasks, non-verbal task results indicate that children possess ToM at the age of 15 months, or earlier. The contradictory data led to the so-called 'developmental gap': how is it that 15-month-olds already possess ToM, while failing the traditional tasks until the age of four? My thesis is that the data at our disposal, if interpreted in the light of a suitable theoretical framework, do not generate a genuine contradiction. Prior to the interpretation of the research results, a distinction between epistemological and metaphysical levels of investigation, and a clear analysis of notions such as 'representation', 'inference', 'mental state', and the like, is required. (shrink)

The Meno has traditionally been viewed as "one of Plato's earliest and most noteworthy forays into epistemology." In this dialogue, and in the course of a discussion between Socrates and his young interlocutor, Meno, about the nature of virtue and whether it can be taught, “Meno raises an epistemological question unprecedented in the Socratic dialogues.” This question - or rather, dilemma - has come to be known in the philosophical literature as Meno’s Paradox of Inquiry, due its apparently containing (...) an easy-to-detect equivocation of the word ‘know’. Immediately after the paradox, and in an apparent response to it, Socrates recounts a myth: a story told by priests and priestesses about the pre-natal existence and immortality of the soul. From this this myth, Socrates concocts the infamous theory of recollection – a theory according to which the soul has acquired knowledge of everything before it was born, while in a disincarnate state. According to the traditional reading of Meno’s paradox, this theory constitutes Plato’s response to it. The traditional reading has come under fire in recent years by advocates of the epistemological reading, who argue that the theory of recollection is not Plato’s intended response to the paradox. Instead, they suggest, Plato’s distinction between true belief and knowledge – which appears towards the end of the dialogue – is sufficient for solving the paradox; and as such, it ought to be read as Plato’s response to it. In this thesis, I argue against ERM’s claim that a mere epistemological distinction is all it takes to solve the paradox. To do so, I explore the metaphysics of change in Plato’s ontology. From this, I appeal to our everyday notion of ‘memory’ in order to show that Meno’s paradox, in fact, contains a hidden-premise, which when laid bare, reveals two distinct challenges contained within the argument: a superficial one, and a deeper one. I argue that although it appears at first blush as though the former could easily be dismissed as an equivocation, to which the epistemological distinction between belief and knowledge could provide an answer, the latter cannot. This is because the deeper challenge threatens the very preconditions of knowledge itself – that is to say, it renders cognition impossible – and, as such, it cancels out any effort to provide an epistemological response to the superficial challenge. Hence, unless the deeper-level challenge is satisfactorily disarmed, both challenges remain unanswered. I argue that although the major motivation for the theory of recollection in the Meno is indeed to provide an answer to scepticism about knowledge, nevertheless, it ought to be understood, first, as a theory of cognition – i.e. as a theory about the preconditions and atomic building blocks of knowledge – and not a theory of knowledge per se. This answer comes in the form of a radical theory of the mind and cognition – one that stands in stark opposition to our common-sense views about the mind: a view from which, Plato believed, the paradox arises. Drawing on recent debates between Nativists and Empiricists in the Cognitive Sciences, I argue that it was a great achievement of Plato’s to grasp that our common-sense view about the mind, and its concomitant process of learning, language acquisition and knowledge acquisition, might in fact be at the very root of scepticism about our ability to engage in meaningful philosophical practice, and our ability to acquire objective knowledge – especially, objective moral knowledge. The Meno’s paradox, then – so I contend - is not a puzzle whose solution rests upon merely pointing to an epistemological distinction between true belief and knowledge, as advocates of ERM have suggested. Rather, it is a puzzle about cognition. More precisely, it is a puzzle that targets the rudimentary cognitive stages of initial cognition and truth-recognition - one whose solution entails offering an account of the mind that would make these elementary cognitive processes possible. Accordingly, Plato’s theory of recollection in the Meno ought to be read as an attempt to map the structure of the mind, and as such, to provide an account of cognition. In doing so, he intended to put forward a view about the preconditions of knowledge – the sort of preconditions without which language acquisition and knowledge acquisition would simply not be possible. With this theory, Plato has the beginnings of an argument against the kind of relativism and scepticism prevalent at his time. As such, a correct interpretation of the so-called paradox of inquiry should approach it as a puzzle about mind and cognition – and not solely as an epistemological one, as it has previously been treated. (shrink)

This volume brings together sixteen essays by Louise Antony that reflect her distinctive approach to issues at the intersections of feminist theory, epistemology, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. Antony proceeds from the Quinean precept that we treat knowledge as a natural phenomenon. This approach, Antony argues, offers feminists and other progressive theorists vital tools with which to expose and dismantle ideological conceptions of knowledge, human nature, and objectivity. She argues that naturalism's focus on the actual (as opposed to (...) hypothetical) circumstances under which human beings acquire knowledge illuminates and responds to feminist calls for a "situated" account of human knowledge. At the same time, Antony defends a number of views that have been the object of feminist criticism: psychological individualism, cognitive nativism, and the autonomy of semantics. These views, Antony argues, are in no way incompatible with feminist commitments, which is good, because they enjoy broad empirical support. Also in this volume, Antony addresses a number of practical issues of concern to feminists: Does pornography silence women? Are we ethically entitled to moral partiality? Is legitimate authority possible? Why are there so few women in philosophy? Finally, Antony presents and develops her own theory of gender. She argues that genders are socially constructed and multiply realized categories that bring into concordance sets of properties that have no natural or rational connection to each other. Genders must not be identified with the categories "female" and "male," but human sexual difference is the material, explanatory basis of gender systems: but for the existence of differences in reproductive role between females and males, gender regimes would not exist. (shrink)

The problem of reference is central to the fields of linguistics, cognitive science, and epistemology yet it remains largely unresolved. Naming and Reference explains the reference of lexical terms, with particular emphasis placed on proper names, demonstrative pronouns and personal pronouns. It examines such specific issues as: how to account for the reference of names that are empty or speculative, which abound in science and philosophy, and how to account for intentional reference as in "he took Mary to be Jane." (...) Naming and Reference begins with a survey of the history of the subject within a philosophical and critical setting, from Locke, Brentano, Peirce, Frege, Russell, Strawson, Tarski, Carnap and Quine up to Kripke and Fodor. The rest of the book is devoted to an algorithmic theory of reference derived from Peirce's idea that signification is a three-way relationship involving a term, an object and an interpretant. The theory rounds out the causal notion of reference, while at the same time preserving Frege's distinction between sense and reference, and making a place for indexical terms. Through the use of various computer models, R. J. Nelson explores the meaning and reference of words to objects and the relationship of these phenomena to perception, belief and truth. The models used are parallel, connectionist computational models rather than the sequential models of mid-century artificial intelligence. The aim, in opposition to nativist and mental representation theories, is to account for the genesis of semantically interpretable symbols, not to assume them. (shrink)

This volume features in-depth philosophical analyses of major Japanese Confucian philosophers as well as themes and topics addressed in their writings. Its main historical focus is the early-modern period (1600-1868), when much original Confucian philosophizing occurred. Written by scholars from the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan, and China and eclectic in methodology and disciplinary approach, this anthology seeks to advance new multidimensional studies of Japanese Confucian philosophy for English language readers. It presents essays that focus on Japanese Confucianism, while (...) including topics related to Buddhism, Shintō, Nativism, and even Andō Shōeki (1703-1762), one of the most vehement critics of Confucianism in all of East Asia. The book builds on the premise that Japanese Confucian philosophy consists in the ongoing engagement in critical, self-reflective discussions of and speculative theorizing about ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, political theory, and spiritual problems, as well as aesthetics, cosmology, and ontology. (shrink)

Molyneux’s Question, also known as Molyneux’s Problem, soon became a fulcrum for early research in the epistemology of concepts, challenging common intuitions about how our concepts originate, whether sensory features differentiate concepts, and how concepts are utilized in novel contexts. It was reprinted and discussed by a wide range of early modern philosophers, including Gottfried Leibniz, George Berkeley, and Adam Smith, and was perhaps the most important problem in the burgeoning discipline of psychology of the 18th Century. The question has (...) since undergone various stages of development, both as a mental exercise and as an experimental paradigm, garnering a variety of both affirmative and negative replies in the next three centuries of debate and deliberation. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Reply to Devitt and Jackson Reply to Egan Reply to Cowie Reply to Goldman Reply to Sterelny Reply to Prinz Reply to Godfrey‐Smith Reply to Sosa Reply to Bishop References.

After more than three centuries, Molyneux's question continues to challenge our understanding of cognition and perceptual systems. Locke, the original recipient of the question, approached it as a theoretical exercise relevant to long-standing philosophical issues, such as nativism, the possibility of common sensibles, and the empiricism-rationalism debate. However, philosophers were quick to adopt the experimentalist's stance as soon as they became aware of recoveries from congenital blindness through ophtalmic surgery. Such recoveries were widely reported to support empiricist positions, suggesting (...) that the question had found its empirical answer. Contrary to this common view, we argue that studies of patients recovering from early blindness through surgery cannot provide an answer. In fact, because of the very nature of such ophtalmological interventions it is impossible to test the question in the empirical conditions outlined by Molyneux. Thus we propose that Molyneux's question be treated as an early thought experiment of a specific kind. Although thought experiments of this kind cannot be turned into actual experimental conditions, they provide a conceptual restructuring of theories. Such restructuring in turn leads to new predictions that can then be tested by normal experiments. In accord with this interpretation, we show that Molyneux's question can be analyzed into a hierarchy of specific questions about vision in its phenomenal and sensory-motor components. Some of these questions do lead to actual experimental conditions that could be studied empirically. (shrink)

Though nativist hypotheses have played a pivotal role in the development of cognitive science, it remains exceedingly obscure how they—and the debates in which they figure—ought to be understood. The central aim of this paper is to provide an account which addresses this concern and in so doing: a) makes sense of the roles that nativist theorizing plays in cognitive science and, moreover, b), explains why it really matters to the contemporary study of cognition. I conclude by outlining a range (...) of further implications of this account for current debate in cognitive science. (shrink)

One of the most important recent developments in the study of concepts has been the resurgence of interest in nativist accounts of the human conceptual system. However, many theorists suppose that a key feature of neural organization—the brain’s plasticity—undermines the nativist approach to concept acquisition. We argue that, on the contrary, not only does the brain’s plasticity fail to undermine concept nativism, but a detailed examination of the neurological evidence actually provides powerful support for concept nativism.

Nativists about syntactic processing have argued that linguisticprocessing, understood as the implementation of a rule-basedcomputational architecture, is spared in Williams syndrome, (WMS)subjects – and hence that it provides evidence for a geneticallyspecified language module. This argument is bolstered by treatingSpecific Language Impairments (SLI) and WMS as a developmental doubledissociation which identifies a syntax module. Neuroconstructivists haveargued that the cognitive deficits of a developmental disorder cannot beadequately distinguished using the standard gross behavioural tests ofneuropsychology and that the linguistic abilities of the (...) WMS subject canbe equally well explained by a constructivist strategy of neurallearning in the individual, with linguisitic functions implemented in anassociationist architecture. The neuroconstructivist interpretation ofWMS undermines the hypothesis of a double dissociation between SLI andWMS, leaving unresolved the question of nativism about syntax. Theapparent linguistic virtuosity of WMS subjects is an artefact ofenhanced phonological processing, a fact which is easier to demonstratevia the associationist computational model embraced byneuroconstructivism. (shrink)

Linguistic competence, in general terms, involves the ability to learn, understand, and speak a language. The nativist view in the philosophy of linguistics holds that the principal foundation of linguistic competence is an innate faculty of linguistic cognition. In this paper, close scrutiny is given to nativism's fundamental commitments in the area of metaphysics. In the course of this exploration it is argued that any minimally defensible variety of nativism is, for better or worse, married to two theses: (...) linguistic competence is grounded in a faculty of linguistic cognition that is (i) embodied and (ii) whose operating rules are represented in the brains of human language users. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments purport to undercut the justification of our moral judgments by showing why a tendency to make moral judgments would evolve regardless of the truth of those judgments. Machery and Mallon (2010. Evolution of morality. In J.M. Doris and The Moral Psychology Research Group (Eds.), The Moral Psychology Handbook (pp. 3-46). Oxford: Oxford University Press) have recently tried to disarm these arguments by showing that moral cognition – in the sense that is relevant to debunking – is not (...) the product of natural selection. Specifically, they present a barrage of increasingly influential challenges against reciprocity-based approaches to moral nativism. In the present paper I defend the nativist account of moral cognition against these criticisms, thereby bolstering the skeptical conclusions of evolutionary debunking arguments. However, Machery and Mallon's critique does successfully highlight several vulnerabilities in Richard Joyce's approach to debunking, suggesting several ways in which it can be revised toward generating a more robust version of the argument. (shrink)

Nativism is a forgotten ideology which nevertheless operates in the current era as illustrated by the resurgence of anti-immigrant sentiment and restrictionistic policies in response to growing Latino/a immigration. This response to Latino/a immigration recalls a historic era from the early 1900s known as the Americanization period which was also characterized by a strong nativist agenda and harsh restrictionistic policies. Developments from the Americanization period continue to influence immigration and education policies in the current era and are visible in (...) the attacks against bilingual education, in mandated English-only laws, in locating struggles over national identity in the schools, and in the narrow focus on the acquisition of English in immigrant education. Identifying nativist themes from the Americanization era that have been reinvigorated in today's anti-immigrant climate makes visible a type of discrimination directed at immigrants that is not often recognized as discrimination due to a Black and White view of prejudice termed racial dualism. In addition to identifying the influence of the nativist legacy of the Americanization period in the current era, the implications of the conflict of legacies between the Civil Rights and Americanization eras for the education of immigrant students are discussed. (shrink)

Constructivism is the most recent in a long line of failed attempts to discredit nativism. It seeks support from true (but irrelevant) facts, wastes its energy on straw men, and jumps logical gaps; but its greatest weakness lies in its failure to match nativism's explanation of a wide range of disparate phenomena, particularly in language acquisition.

In the last few years, nativist, modular views of moral cognition have been influential. This paper shares the view that normative cognition develops robustly, and is probably an adaptation. But it develops an alternative view of the developmental basis of moral cognition, based on the idea that adults scaffold moral development by organising the learning environment of the next generation. In addition, I argue that the modular nativist picture has no plausible account of the role of explicit moral judgement, and (...) that no persuasive version of the ‘poverty of the stimulus' applies to moral cognition. (shrink)

Radical concept nativism is the thesis that virtually all lexical concepts are innate. Notoriously endorsed by Jerry Fodor (1975, 1981), radical concept nativism has had few supporters. However, it has proven difficult to say exactly what’s wrong with Fodor’s argument. We show that previous responses are inadequate on a number of grounds. Chief among these is that they typically do not achieve sufficient distance from Fodor’s dialectic, and, as a result, they do not illuminate the central question of (...) how new primitive concepts are acquired. To achieve a fully satisfactory response to Fodor’s argument, one has to juxtapose questions about conceptual content with questions about cognitive development. To this end, we formulate a general schema for thinking about how concepts are acquired and then present a detailed illustration. (shrink)