Concept+Acquisition+by+Rationalists

Concept Acquisition: The Debate
Early Modern Philosophers are traditionally divided by the debate over concept acquisition or the question of where our ideas originate. "Rationalists" hold that ideas are inborn and discovered by inner experience. "Empiricists" argue that ideas are acquired by (external) sensory experience. However, this debate is far too complex to be read in such a straightforward manner. For instance, Leibniz held that while ideas are inborn, they are triggered by external sensory experience. By contrast, Malebranche held that ideas are "perceived in God", or found outside of the mind by inner experience. The complication here is due to the co-mingling of two distinct questions: Where do ideas come from and How are ideas discovered. Distiguishing these questions helps to both clarify the debate, and situate the various philosophers of the Early Modern period. The table below is one interpretation of this debate:


 * Idea Acquisition ||||||  Are all ideas innate?  ||
 * Are all ideas discovered by inner experience? ||   ||  Yes  ||  No  ||
 * ^  ||  Yes  ||  Descartes, Spinoza  ||  Malebranche, Berkeley  ||
 * ^  ||  No  ||  Leibniz  ||  Locke  ||

Concept Acquisition: The Motivation
As Descartes emphasizes, ideas that are simply found in the mind have a special status: they are necessarily true (or it is inconceivable that they are false) whenever they are brought before the mind. Hence, nativist ideas had special status, particularly when compared with the ideas of the empiricists, which were at best "probably true. Hence, the debate of concept acquisition was motivated by the status of ideas: are they necessarily true or possibly true?

Descartes
(31 March 1596 - 11 February 1650)

In the 2nd Meditation, Descartes declares that the idea that he exists as a thinking thing is something discoverable "by a simple intuition" as "self-evident". (Second Replies) The //cogito// becomes, along with a second intuited and self-evident truth of matter being extended in nature, an axiom in his new philosophical system. If an evil demon is misleading him, he must exist in order to be misled.

//Thus, after everything has been most carefully weighed, it must finally be established that this pronouncement "I am, I exist" is necessarily true every time I utter it or conceive it in my mind.// (Descartes, Meditation Two)

Descartes revisits this toward the end of Meditation Two and further expands on this concept writing, //For since I now know that even bodies are not, properly speaking, perceived by the senses or by the faculty of imagination, but by the intellect alone, and that they are not perceived through their being touched or seen, but only through their being understood, I manifestly know that nothing can be perceived more easily and more evidently than my own mind.// (Descartes, Meditation Two)

Arguments for Rationalism
Descartes is not particularly reflective about his nativism, neither defending it nor entertaining objections to it.

//**The Wax Argument**// A piece of wax is taken from the honeycomb. Some scent of flowers still remains, it is hard, cold, and it easily emits a sound. Then the piece of wax is moved towards a flame. The scent changes, color disappears, shape transforms. The before and after are completely different, yet the same piece of wax remains. This information is not perceived through the senses because everything that came under the senses has now changed. The imagination allows us to see the piece of wax as something "extended, flexible, and mutable." However, this piece of wax can go through innumerable changes. Our imagination is incapable of running through those changes. "It remains then for me to concede that I do not grasp what this wax is through the imagination; rather, I perceive it through the mind alone" (Descartes, Meditation Two).

Malebranche
(6 August 1638 – 13 October 1715)

As the table above suggests, Malebranche is not a typical nativist. He believes that there is no physical, external world. All we perceive are ideas. Ideas are //not// inborn, but are rather found or "perceived" in God. (//The Search After Truth// 1.6) Malebranche says that, "God can reveal everything to our minds simply by willing that what they see is...in Him." (//Search,//1.6) However, Malebranche holds the second Rationalist thesis, that ideas are discovered by inner experience. This is because all experience is //of ideas in the mind.// This is a claim that is mutually exclusive with the Empiricist thesis that sensory experience is the basis for our acquisition of ideas as is thus the reason why he is counted in the Rationalist camp.

Malebranche says, "When we perceive something sensible, two things are found in our perception: //sensation// and pure //idea//." (//Search//, 1.6) He says that sensation is not something we physically feel, but something that we experience in our soul, and it is caused by God. And the idea, which is connected to the sensation, is in God Himself.

Arguments for Rationalism
Malebranche attacks the "Resemblance Thesis", a view held by some Empiricists (e.g. Hume) that the ideas in our mind resemble the objects they represent. For instance, one's image idea of a cube resembles an externally existing cube. His argument is a stunner!


 * 1) If the perception of external objects causes our ideas of external objects, then external objects resemble our ideas of them.
 * 2) But external objects cannot resemble our experiences.
 * So, the perception of external objects does not cause our ideas of them.

Malebranche's support for the second premise is simply that the qualities of ideas and external objects are categorically distinct:


 * 1) external objects are impenetrable, but ideas are not,
 * 2) external objects are constant, but our ideas of them vary in size, color, and shape.
 * 3) external objects are imperfect (e.g. a drawn circle), but our ideas are perfect (e.g. a mathematical circle)

Malebranche's arguments against the resemblance thesis do not pose problems for Empiricists who reject the resemblance thesis (e.g. Locke).

**Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz**
(July 1, 1646 - June 21, 1716)

**Arguments for Rationalism**
Leibniz supports the Platonic idea of reminiscence (recollection), found in the //Meno//. To Leibniz, there is no new information, as we already have in our minds the forms. "We have all these forms in our mind...and nothing can be taught to us whose idea we do not already have in our mind." (Leibniz, //Discourse on Metaphysics//, 26) These forms are given to us by our souls, and need only "attention to recognize truths." The expressions that are of our souls are termed "ideas," and those we conceive or form are called "notions." Reflecting on the //Meno//, Leibniz argues that "nothing ever enters into our mind naturally from the outside." He says that we do not receive these forms from the senses, but from God, "We have ideas of everything in our souls only by virtue of God's continual action on us." (//Discourse//, 28)