Are There Any Innate Ideas?
‘It is an established opinion amongst men, that there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its first being, and brings into the world with it.’ [1]
Innate ideas are those principles that are found present in the mind at birth as opposed to those which arrive and develop throughout our lives as a result of sensory experience. Whether or not these innate principles exist, holds for many philosophers many important implications. There are many examples of philosophers who at various times in the history of philosophy have put forward this theory in order to locate the source of valid knowledge. Famously, Plato claimed that knowledge procured from the senses is invalid. That the data received is merely a reflection or a shadow of reality and that the pure, true image of reality is imprinted upon our souls before birth. Without the possibility of any innate notions......
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