INNATE IDEAS - HOW DO I KNOW THAT SOMETHING IS HOT OR COLD?steemCreated with Sketch.

in #philosophy7 years ago

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In my last post, i talked about The Philosophers and God.  My brother,  @ogochukwu while reacting to the article mentioned innate ideas to buttress his point that we know God exist. I actually promised him i will talk about 'innate ideas' and i intend to do that in this article.

While there are many arguments on knowlege, there are many answers to what constitute knowledge or what we mean when we say we 'know'. The question of knowledge can be traced to the time of Socrates (as enunciated by Plato in meno) who to many people's surprise claims he is ignorant. Socrates, in my opinion, is a very intelligent character from what i read about him from Plato. 

Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher who claims he does not know. For him, an intelligent man is that who knows he does not know. To bring out the best out of man, he used a method called dialctical method. This is a method of question and answer. Socrates would start his conversation with questions until the point where the interlocutor knows that which he thought he does not know.


Socrates is the first Greek scholar to have discuses the topic,  innate ideas. For him, he believes that we do not need to go to school because what they will teach us are things we already know.


This topic was brought back to life by Rene Descartes. Rene Descartes is known for his popular dictum: cogito ergo sum - i think therefore i am/exist.


WHAT IS INNATISM?

Innatism is a philosophical and epistemological doctrine that holds that the mind is born with ideas/knowledge, and that therefore the mind is not empty at birth.  source

The debate about innatism is between Rationalists and Empiricists. Rationalism is the view that true knowledge is only acquired via reason. This, for them, is the only infallible means of acquiring true knowledge. I will briefly discuss the innatism explained by Rene Descartes - a rationalist.

Descartes suggests that something that is 'innate' is effectively present from birth and while it may not reveal itself then, is more than likely to present itself later in life. He claims that innate knowledge is like a disease that we my not know anything about presently but will show itself in the future. Descartes comparison of innate knowledge to an innate disease, whose symptoms may only show up later in life, unless prohibited by a factor like age or puberty, suggests that if an event occurs prohibiting someone from exhibiting an innate behaviour or knowledge, it doesn’t mean the knowledge did not exist at all but rather it wasn’t expressed – they were not able to acquire that knowledge. In other words, innate beliefs, ideas and knowledge require experiences to be triggered or they may never be expressed. source

While some people would find the position above by Descartes appealing, i find it not! What do i think about his position? I will discuss it shortly... The view that man is born with an innate knowledge is a questionable one. 

Empiricism on the other hand talks about experience and senses. For the empiricists, only experience can furnish us with true and infallible knowledge.

Notable empiricist that questioned innate ideas is John Locke. Locke is of the opinion that man was not born with any innate knowledge or idea. Human mind at birth, is according to him tabula rasa, an empty slate which experiences write on. The human mind for him is an empty slate.

Modern era in philosophy is actually epistemology era. The era of language, mind, soul, truth, etc., and this was the era Locke and Descartes dominated.

The idea of innatism is an elaborate topic that questions even the idea of God as discussed in my last post. Now to the object of discourse, is there an innate idea?


To say  man came to the world with an innate ideas, is to say that everybody in the universe knows about everything or have knowledge about everything. When we look at the type of grades we got at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, one wonders what these scholars meant when they said we have innate ideas. 

During my undergraduate days, many people had to go home because they could not meet up with the required CGP. In this instance, you might be tempted to say, perhaps, they did not have someone like Socrates who engaged people in the dialectic method. You could also say they didn't see someone to 'remind' them of what they already 'knew'. 

By putting yourself in such state, you fail to realize that you are simply saying that which you thought they knew can only be manifested with the help of someone with such experience (empiricism). 

Are you saying that we already have knowledge about taste (sweetness/bitterness), colour (yellow/black), feeling (hotness/coldness), etc? These are things we know by experience. We know that something is sweet or bitter by putting it in our mouth. I am not also forgetting the fact that some people do not have this sense of taste which explains why honey is not always 'sweet' for everybody!

How would you explain the colour red, blue, green, etc to a blind man? Do you also mean i will know that something is hot or cold by simply reminding me about it and not touching it to differentiate it? I believe many of us have an idea of hotness by touching hot pot or putting our fingers in fire. 

These and many other things are known via experience.  I do not believe i have an idea which can only be brought into light be experience and at the same time call such idea / experience 'innate'.

Feel free to drop your comment. I would love it if we can argue about this topic to at least learn from one another.


Thanks for reading!  Upvote, Resteem and comment!!!

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Interesting topic. It definitely gives one something to think about. For me the idea that knowledge is innate seems to be a bit outdated. It basically suggests that learning does not take place. However, there may be an arguments for both sides. On the one hand neuroscience tells us that the brain forms networks of information which become strengthened the more the neurons within a particular network fire. In other words, the more a person does a specific task (throwing a ball or doing mathematics) the stronger that particular network becomes. The brain also remains somewhat plastic throughout an individuals lifetime in that the brain often re-wires itself to incorporate new information. On the other hand an arguement for innatism may be the fact that the brain undergoes heavy synaptic pruning in the first few years of a persons life. The brain starts out with far more neurons (brain cells) than are required and as a child has experiences, many neurons die off until they are left with an appropriate amount. We see this concept in language especially. The human brain focuses heavily on language for the first 10 years or so of life. A child's brain is equipped to learn any language but as they are exposed to a particular languages phonemes (bits of sound) their brain begins to focus only on the sounds that are relevant to their language. At the same time their brain inhibits other sounds that do not fit the language. This is why older individuals often cannot recognize or even say certain sounds of another language. The most common example I can think of is that individuals of Asian decent who did not learn English when they were young, often have a hard time pronouncing words with R' or L's in them. This is because their brains inhibited those sounds during their development stage because they were not used. In many cases, individuals cannot even hear the differentiation of sounds when listening to unfamiliar languages. This could be an argument for innatism I suppose. Anyway, sorry for the long comment lol. Your post is interesting to me though.

Wow! I really love how you clearly explained your point. One or two things are already taken. Your last point talks about 'habit' in the real sense such that they are practically programmed to understand certain sounds due to past experiences (my interpretation). This still points to the empiricists claim. Your contribution is appreciated. Thanks.

Keep hitting points...i realy enjoyed the discourse

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