ON THE VERY IDEA OF INNATENESS
ON THE VERY IDEA OF INNATENESS

Summary/Abstract: Over the past several decades, it has become increasingly apparent that much of our cognitive abilities rely on the existence of innate theories of some specific domain of knowledge. For example, it seems that children possess an innate basis of information about other minds whose disruption can ensue in pathological states like autism. Innate beliefs have also been invoked in the explanation of other domains of cognitive competence such as: our knowledge of basic properties of physical objects and of kinds of stuff; children’s ability at exploiting limited information about numbers, sets, and basic algebraic operations; adults’ conception of numbers; music perception; naïve conceptions of the physical world; certain facial expressions of emotions; deductive inferences and our reasoning concerning actions and their practical consequences. But, what does it mean for something to be innate? The purpose of this paper is primarily to explore what constitutes innateness and how something is determined to be innate in light of the wide spectrum of positions developed under the ubiquitous umbrella of innateness.

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