Essay Plan
Innatism is therefore not a convincing theory
- Innatism is the rationalist view that some of our propositional knowledge or concepts are not derived from experience but are part of the structure of our minds from birth — and so known a priori - Plato defended an early version through the slave boy argument: Socrates elicits geometric knowledge from an uneducated slave through questioning alone, suggesting the knowledge was pre-existing rather than learned - Leibniz offers the stronger and more defensible version: we have an innate predisposition to know necessary truths — such as the law of non-contradiction — which cannot be derived from experience since experience only ever gives us particular contingent instances, never universal necessity - A strength of Leibniz's theory is that his explanation of how we know necessary truths is better than the empiricist's — it is genuinely unclear how contingent sensory experience could ever ground knowledge that something must be true in all possible cases - I will consider two of Locke's arguments against Leibniz's theory: the transparency of ideas and the universality of innate knowledge. I think both can be defeated using Leibniz's understanding of innate knowledge as a predisposition. But there is a third criticism — that Leibniz's notions of predisposition and experiential trigger turn innatism into non-innatism — which cannot be answered - Innatism is therefore not a convincing theory
Section 1: Locke's Transparency Argument
- Leibniz's predisposition response is effective against the strong form of Locke's argument. We have many natural predispositions we are never explicitly conscious of, and there is no principled reason why knowledge should be different. Locke's transparency requirement seems to simply assert rather than argue that knowledge must be conscious - However Locke could retreat to a weaker but more difficult version: he might accept that we need not be conscious of an innate proposition on every occasion we rely on it, but insist that we must have been explicitly conscious of it at least once for it to count as genuine knowledge. After all, knowledge seems to require at least some moment of conscious grasp — otherwise what distinguishes knowing something from merely being biologically disposed towards it? Leibniz's reply that the law of non-contradiction is so deeply embedded in rational thought that it need never be made explicit is a logical escape, but an uncomfortable one — it stretches the word 'knowledge' in a way that is hard to fully accept
: The transparency objection
- Locke argues that for an idea to be in the mind, the mind must at some point have been consciously aware of it — this is the transparency of ideas - P1: If some knowledge is innate, then every mind must at some point have been conscious of it - P2: Supposedly innate propositions like the law of non-contradiction — 'it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be' — have never been explicitly considered by many people - C: Therefore there is no innate knowledge - The force of the argument is that if we allow innate knowledge to be knowledge the mind has never been conscious of, the concept becomes vacuous — anything could count as innate on those terms
Leibniz: Leibniz's response
- Leibniz argues that innate knowledge does not need to be consciously held — it can exist as a predisposition or natural tendency in the mind - 'Knowledge, ideas and truth can be in our minds without our ever having actually thought about them — they are merely natural tendencies, dispositions and attitudes' - We observe the law of non-contradiction constantly and unconsciously — we cannot think coherently while contradicting it, even if we have never explicitly articulated it. It is implicit in everything we say and do - Therefore transparency — conscious awareness — is not a necessary condition of innate knowledge
Section 2: Locke's Universality Argument
- The predisposition plus experiential trigger response is internally coherent and the marble analogy helpfully illustrates the distinction between potential and realisation. Locke's universality argument does not straightforwardly defeat Leibniz, and the response to the universality objection is stronger than the response to the transparency objection since it offers a more concrete explanation of why innate knowledge might not be universally explicit - However the response is becoming increasingly suspicious. Leibniz is now saying innate knowledge is unconscious, not universal, and requires experience to be realised. The question of what distinguishes this from a mere capacity to acquire concepts through experience — which is all empiricists ever claimed — is now very difficult to avoid. The marble analogy is suggestive but does not resolve this: the marble's potential is a physical structural property we can point to, whereas Leibniz's innate predispositions are far harder to identify independently of their experiential realisation
: The universality objection
- P1: If some knowledge is innate — built into the structure of all human minds — then it should be universal, held by everyone - P2: But children and those with severe cognitive impairments do not know supposedly innate propositions like the law of non-contradiction — they would not even understand what it means - P3: Moreover, not all cultures have the concept of God, yet Leibniz claims this concept is innate - C: Therefore there is no innate knowledge - Locke adds a further point: even if there were a universally assented to proposition, it could result from a universal feature of experience — so universal assent would not even be sufficient to establish innatism, let alone necessary. This closes off the move of pointing to universal agreement as evidence for innatism
Leibniz: Leibniz's response
- Leibniz again appeals to predisposition: innate knowledge is not equally developed in everyone because it requires an appropriate experiential trigger to be fully realised - Children have not yet had the relevant experiential triggers; those with severe cognitive impairments may lack the capacity to benefit from them - The concept of God is innate as a predisposition in all humans but is only fully realised in those exposed to religious practice and language — its absence in some cultures shows only that the trigger was absent, not the predisposition itself - Leibniz illustrates this with the marble analogy: a single hammer blow could not produce a statue unless the marble had an innate potential for that shape. The trigger does not create the potential — it realises it. Similarly, experience does not create innate knowledge, it draws out what was already there
Section 3: Leibniz's Predisposition Collapses into Empiricism
- This objection is very strong. Leibniz made the concessions he did to survive Locke's first two arguments, but in doing so progressively abandoned what makes innatism distinctive. The resulting position is one empiricists can largely accept - The necessary truths argument retains genuine force as Leibniz's strongest surviving point — it is not entirely obvious that a priori reasoning applied to contingent experience can fully account for our grasp of universal necessity. And the problems of hard concepts and the missing shade of blue show that empiricism also has genuine gaps in its account of concept formation, which prevents the empiricist reply from being a clean victory - However the a priori reasoning reply to necessary truths is a viable alternative that does not require positing knowledge pre-loaded at birth, and by Occam's razor we should prefer the explanation that assumes the least. Empiricism, despite its gaps, does not require the metaphysically costly claim that knowledge is innate
: The argument
- Having defended innatism from both of Locke's objections using predisposition plus experiential trigger, Leibniz now faces a deeper problem: it is no longer clear that his view is genuinely innatist at all - Leibniz says innate concepts are unconscious, not universal, and require experience to be realised. The question is then: what is the difference between an innate predisposition and a mere capacity to acquire a concept through experience? - Take the concept of God. Leibniz claims everyone is predisposed to it, but it is only realised in those exposed to religious experience. If someone is never so exposed and never forms the concept, in what sense did they ever have it? We cannot say someone has the concept of God if they are never in any way inclined to make explicit use of it - All Leibniz seems to be saying is that humans are capable of acquiring the concept of God. But being capable of acquiring a concept is not the same as the concept already being in the mind — which is precisely what innatism claims - Empiricists can accept everything Leibniz says — unconscious dispositions, experiential triggers, gradual realisation — without conceding a single innatist claim. There is nothing left that is distinctively innatist about his position
Leibniz: Leibniz's strongest remaining ground — necessary truths
- Leibniz's most powerful argument is that knowledge of necessary truths cannot come from experience alone - Experience only ever gives us contingent particular instances — every time we observe something it either is or is not the case, but that could in principle be coincidence. No finite number of observations can establish that something must be true in all possible cases - So knowledge of the law of non-contradiction — that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be — cannot be derived from experience. It must involve something innate - Locke and Hume reply that there is a third option: necessary truths are arrived at through a priori reasoning applied to concepts gained from experience. We experience white objects and reason a priori that 'white cannot be not-white' — an analytic necessary truth generated by reasoning alone, not innate knowledge - Furthermore, concepts like 'knowledge', 'good', and 'justice' seem to present a problem for the empiricist copy principle — they are neither obviously simple ideas copied from impressions, nor obviously reducible to simpler ideas that were. This suggests empiricism may also struggle to account for all our concepts. Hume's response is that concepts like 'good' and 'justice' do not express cognitive states at all but non-cognitive ones like emotion — but this is an unproven claim and is widely disputed - Similarly, Hume's own copy principle faces the missing shade of blue problem: a person who has never seen a particular shade can imaginatively construct it from the surrounding shades. Hume dismisses this as trivial, but this is not a real response — it shows that at least some ideas need not be directly copied from impressions, which is a genuine crack in the empiricist account
- Locke's transparency argument fails: Leibniz's predisposition account is coherent and there is no principled reason why knowledge must be consciously held — though Locke's weaker version reveals that Leibniz's notion of knowledge is being stretched uncomfortably - Locke's universality argument also fails on Leibniz's terms: the experiential trigger explains why innate knowledge is not universally explicit, and the marble analogy illustrates the distinction between potential and realisation — though it does not fully resolve the underlying worry - However the cumulative effect of these defences is fatal: a predisposition that is unconscious, not universal, and requires experience to be realised is indistinguishable from a mere capacity — which is all empiricists ever claimed. Being capable of acquiring a concept is not the same as already having it in the mind - Leibniz's necessary truths argument is his strongest point and retains some force — and empiricism has its own gaps with hard concepts and the missing shade of blue — but a priori reasoning provides a viable alternative and Occam's razor favours it - Innatism is therefore not a convincing theory