Innate Ideas: Plato and the Meno
Philosopher Ian Hacking notes that Plato was fascinated by mathematics, and explains that his theory of innate ideas is based on the simple mathematical proof in his famous Socratic dialogue called the Meno.
Innate Ideas and Mathematical Proof
Philosopher Ian Hacking observes that rationalists were fascinated by the possibility of mathematical proof, while empiricists were not. He notes that there is an enormous difference to this day among philosophers about this same subject. For those ...
Aristotle on Knowledge
Philosopher Hubert Dreyfus says that Aristotle believed when people perform in an expert manner, it's because they have a skill to do so, not because they are following principles that are innate or learned.
Chomsky and Language
Philosopher John Searle agrees with Noam Chomsky's contention that a child could not learn a language without some innate mechanism that enables the child to do so. But Professor Searle disagrees with Chomsky's claim that there are universal rules o...
Encountering External Reality
Philosopher Ian Hacking calls himself a materialist, explaining that we learn partly through "a lot of innate equipment...but certainly from earliest experience how to adapt ourselves to the material environment in which we find ourselves."