Plato was Right about Innate Ideas

One of the most basic debates in modern philosophy concerns the existence of innate ideas, i.e., ideas that one is born already knowing. The great British empiricists (Locke and Hume stand out) were notoriously skeptical about innate ideas. They thought that all or almost all of what we ever know comes to us from learning, by way of our senses. Either we learn it by direct observation (roses are red, violets are blue), or we infer it by combining ideas that come by direct observation (observation of fossils + observation of contemporary lizards = knowledge of dinosaurs).

The idea that all the contents of a human mind are the products of encounters with the environment became part of the dogma of the social sciences in the last century. In this case, a philosophic idea became politically attractive. If all mental content comes from experience, then it might be the case that we can dramatically shape minds by reshaping the environment. Perhaps greed, envy, and all psychological sources of hostility and oppression could be eradicated in this way. It is not hard to see why someone might want to believe that.

According to a much older philosophical tradition, a lot of our mental content, maybe even most of it and especially the most basic elements of it is already present at birth. We come into the world like computers purchased at Office Max: with a lot of pre-packaged software.

In the Meno, one of Plato's most brilliant dialogues, Socrates makes a case for this. He sits down with a presumably uneducated boy (which is to say, a slave) and gives the boy a geometry lesson. He does so, however, without telling the boy anything. Instead, he simply asks a series of questions. The boy apparently comes up with the answers out of his own resources. The question is where he acquired those resources.

Socrates argues that the boy's learning is in fact a case of recollection. The boy is remembering what he once somehow knew and somehow forgot. From the Jowett translation:

Soc. This knowledge which he now has must he not either have acquired or always possessed?

Meno. Yes.

Soc. But if he always possessed this knowledge he would always have known; or if he has acquired the knowledge he could not have acquired it in this life, unless he has been taught geometry; for he may be made to do the same with all geometry and every other branch of knowledge. Now, has any one ever taught him all this? You must know about him, if, as you say, he was born and bred in your house.

Men. And I am certain that no one ever did teach him.

Soc. And yet he has the knowledge?

Men. The fact, Socrates, is undeniable.

Soc. But if he did not acquire the knowledge in this life, then he must have had and learned it at some other time?

Socrates puts forth, only as a hypothesis, the idea of reincarnation. We come into this world knowing what we learned in previous lives. As usual, Socrates is right.

If you don't believe Socrates, ask the Mundurucu. This Amazon tribe is not big on abstract mathematics. From the BBC:

The basic tenets of geometry as most people know them were laid out first by the Greek mathematician Euclid about 2,300 years ago.

This "Euclidean geometry" includes familiar propositions such as the fact that a line can connect two points, that the angles of a triangle always add up to the same total, or that two parallel lines never cross.

The ideas are profoundly ingrained in formal education, but what remains a matter of debate is whether the capacity, or intuition, for geometry is present in all peoples regardless of their language or level of education.

To that end, Pierre Pica of the National Centre for Scientific Research in France and his colleagues studied an Amazon tribe known as the Mundurucu to investigate their intuitions about geometry.

"Mundurucu is a language with only approximative numbers," Dr Pica told BBC News.

"You don't have a lot of geometrical terms like square or triangle or anything like that, and no way of saying two lines are parallel... it looks like the language does not have this concept."

Since the Mundurucu have no words for abstract geometrical concepts, it seems unlikely that they learned them from one another. And yet they know them. They actually did slightly better on some problems than French and American counterparts who had been schooled in geometry.

Pica's test was remarkably similar to the one Socrates used and supports the same point. Coming to know in the most basic things is a matter of recollection, recalling to consciousness what we are born knowing.

Plato was close to the answer. It is not that souls transmigrate between lives. Human beings are probably not reincarnated; but the human being is. Our minds are highly designed and that design is indeed born again and again. We learn a lot down here, to be sure. We could not begin to learn anything had we not been born with almost everything.

The argument over innate ideas is about to come to a close after more than three centuries. Plato was right. This is going to have profound consequences for the social and life sciences.

Comments

[Stan Gibilisco]

Animals have instincts; one can debate whether or not they constitute "ideas." However, as a believer in the theory of evolution, I find it reasonable to suppose that humans have instincts too, notions that they're simply born with.

[Ken Blanchard]

That would be the argument, Stan.

[Stan Gibilisco]

"We come into the world like computers purchased at Office Max: with a lot of pre-packaged software."

Ah, yes! And now for the counter-suggestion: All the software in cyberspace carries with it no meaning, no utility, no substance if no input data exists.

Maybe a few sample photos, tunes, documents, videos come with it ...

According to one of my favorite philosphers, Osho, each and every one of us enters this world as a "tabula rasa" (blank slate). A fine slate, to be sure, but with nothing written on it.

I recommend Osho for good reading. Passing the eyes along the lines in one of his (non-pirated, paper-bound) books is like passing the ears along the bars of a well-written symphony.

Is the "argument over innate ideas" about to end? I think not. If nothing else, my own brain will conflict with itself until I pass out of this world as -- what? -- Another "tabula rasa"?

All the ideas, innate or otherwise, that we gather in this world will, methinks, prove useless in the next.

[Billl Fleming]

Not to quibble, but rather, fine tune, the whole notion of evolution was actually advanced by the pre-Socratics... Specifically Anaximander, circa 550 BC, when he reasoned that since the first human infant cold not have survived on it's own, humans must have somehow evolved from some other animal whose infants are more self sufficient. Now, if we could just persuade the 6,000 year old earth folks, KB.

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill: I am not sure about "the whole notion of evolution," but Anaximander certainly conceived the origin of living things, including men, by evolutionary or quazi-evolutionary processes. His thought was a bit mystical, in so far as it is represented by the fragments that survive.

[Gary Bender]

Not having a word for a concept doesn't imply a lack of understanding of a concept. I have successfully used many tools without knowing the English name of the tool, for example. And Meno had plenty of learning between his birth and his encounter with Socrates. One can understand basic mathematical concepts without formal training.

[Donald Pay]

The study does not have anything to do with innate ideas. It has to do with human abilities (due to brain development and experience with the environment) to learn basic math/geometry skills through life experience.

[larry kurtz]

Sorry, Ken, I don't believe you either: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/30/dr_gabor_mat_on_the_stress

[larry kurtz]

More: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/05/30/136798577/can-science-explain-religion?ft=1&f=114424647

[Bill Fleming]

For a quick rebuttal of the "Intelligent Design"/"First Cause"
argument see Stephen Hawking's new book, "The Grand Design."
You'll love the illustrations, KB.

[Bill Fleming]

The position taken in "The Grand Design" is called "Scientific Determinism", and the book explains quite well (if in the broadest of strokes) the effect you are referencing here, KB. Very interesting topic, by the way.

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald doesn't know what he is talking about. Larry doesn't even know what he is saying.

[larry kurtz]

Food and reproduction, Ken. Nuts and bolts. All the rest is self-preservation. Gardening is surrogate foraging. Quantum theory is about approximating numbers. Reincarnation? Genetics determines how humans interact with stimuli. Gabor Mate' ddictive personalities are products of inadequate parenting.