In an Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke rejects innate principles in the mind. He argues that men may acquire all the knowledge they have barely by the use of their natural faculties and without the help of any innate ideas. Locke sets down the following arguments that undermine the notion of innate knowledge.

Universal consent proves nothing innate.

Locke argues that general assent about innate principles is wrong. It is taken for granted that mind is naturally imprinted with ideas such as “what is, is” and “it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be”. However, all children and idiots do not have the least apprehension of such principles, which undermines the universal consent. One can reply that these innate notions are passively imprinted on the mind of children. In other words, they are not capable to come to innate principles, but their mind is imprinted with them. According to Locke, saying that innate notions are imprinted on the mind means that the mind is conscious of them. For, if we do not have innate ideas in our understandings, we can see no difference between innate and learned ideas.   

If reason discovered them, that would not prove them innate.

It is usually argued that by the use of reason men discover innate principles. Locke does not accept this statement. First of all, if we are capable to come to a certain innate knowledge by the use of reason, all discoveries made by the use of reason must be equally innate. However, it is false that reason discovers innate principles since it is nothing else than the faculty of deducing unknown truths from principles that are already known. Secondly, it is false to say that as soon as children come to the use of reason, they come also to know these innate maxims. We may observe in children many instances of the use of reason a long time before they have any knowledge of “what is, is” and “it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be”. Similarly, illiterate people and savages may pass many years without ever thinking on these abstract ideas. So, reason is falsely assigned as the time of discovery of innate ideas.

General abstract ideas are mistaken for innate principles.

Locke asserts that what is considered as innate principle is not framed in the mind but acquired by the use of reason. We can call them general abstract ideas. First, the senses let us furnish our memory with particular ideas. Afterwards, the mind abstracts them generating abstract names. As soon as mind use memory and is able to retain and perceive distinct ideas, it makes discoveries and truths imprinted by external things or by internal operations.  

Assenting propositions as soon as they are proposed and understood does not prove them innate.

Locke does not agree with the statement that all undoubtful truths are innate. An immediate assent to a proposition, upon first hearing and understanding it, cannot be a mark of an innate principle. Otherwise, we could not draw any difference between propositions supposed innate and those that are acquired and learned. If such an assent were a mark of innate, all propositions that are generally assented to as soon as heard must be innate. Propositions “one and two are equal to three”, “sweetness is not bitterness”, “a square is not a circle” and others must be imprinted on the mind. All mathematical demonstrations, ideas of colors, sounds, tastes, figure must also be innate since these are universal maxims. Locke concludes that an immediate assent is rather a mark of self-evidence. It does not depend on innate impressions, but rather on sensation and reflection from which come all ideas.  

The soul begins to have ideas when it begins to perceive.

The question arises as to whether the soul thinks before the senses have furnished it with ideas. Locke opposes to the opinion that the soul always thinks. If this would be case, then men could not perceive that they always think. For instance, the soul may think in a sleeping man without being conscious of it. However, it is not possible that the soul can have its pleasures or pain, while the man does not partake in. Otherwise, Socrates asleep and Socrates awake are two different persons. For waking Socrates is not conscious of happiness or misery of his soul while Socrates is asleep. It would be hard to know in what Socrates to place personal identity. One may say that the soul thinks while we are asleep, but the memory does not retain it. They who talk thus may say that a man who is hungry, does not always feel it. Would it be intelligible to say that a man is hungry without feeling hunger? It wouldn’t. So, hypothesis that a man who thinks is not able to recollect his thoughts the next moment is very hard to be conceived. Consequently, thinking consists in being conscious that one thinks. In this case, the soul begins to think when it begins to perceive. So, the soul thinks when man has its first sensations, and, as a result, its first ideas.

Bibliography:

  • Locke, John, Essay Concerning Human Understanding in Modern Philosophy, an anthology of primary sources, Book I and II, second edition, edited by Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2009