John Locke On Innateness
.... Locke: First of all, because something is common to all it does not mean it is innate. The idea that war is wrong is so common it could be considered innate. However, commonality is no grounds for innateness. Secondly, there are no universally agreed upon ideas (section 4). A concept even simpler like, “what is, is” has an even wider acceptance range than the idea that war is wrong ( section 4). However, mentally handicapped people and children sometimes fail to show assent to something even this simple (section 5). Contemporary: What if children and idiots do understand these ideas and simply cannot express their understanding? Locke: Everything imprinted on the soul and mind has to be understood and assented to at some point. The way something is imprinted is through the understanding of it. If it is in the mind it must be assented to. Ideas that are not assented to must not exist in the mind (section 5). Contemporary: Perhaps children and idiots will be able to assent to them once their capacities for reason develop. If they are able to, by reason, come to these truths one might say they are imprinted on the mind (section 8). Their innate abilities would lead them to these truths, so they would be innately discovered. To innately discover something is to discover something within, therefore these ideas would be innate. Locke: The use of reason requires one to use established ideas to understand the unknown. The ability to reason is innate, but discoveries are not because they are based on non-innate principles (section 8,9). Contemporary: Perhaps while developing their reason they also obtain truths that could be seen as innate (section 12). Perhaps they develop a way to truth through reason. These truths must then be innate because the self discovers them, as I have just stated. Locke: Idiots and children can reason, but never understand the simplest concepts that seem innate to others. Coming to reason does not mean coming to simultaneous understanding of those concepts (section 12). Even if you are right it does not meant they are innate (section 14). The first impressions of the world are through the senses. Through repetition the mind familiarizes itself with the world. The mind forms general ideas and thoughts of the world (Hegel’s model for the development of the consciousness into the use of universals). Perhaps you are right that general ideas and truths can come when general reasoning arises. But, this does not make these truths innate. The starting point for the mind is purely sense-based. Initially, all one has is the ability to take in the world through the senses. Young children can have ideas, even before reason develops, but they are acquired, not innate (15). Everything from the senses is acquired and we start only with the senses. This means reason cannot lead one to discover anything innate. Contemporary: Could Ideas instantly assented to, despite prior knowledge of them, be considered innate? If one’s gut immediately tells one to assent to an idea should it not be considered innate? This would mean innate ideas are in the mind in an implicit form (they exist in the mind, but they are not fully articulated) and once they are explained they instantly become explicit (22). They must then be innate. Locke: Then everything one instantly assents to must be innate. You have stated that in order for a truth to be assented to explicitly the implicit properties abo...