Innatism
Encyclopedia
Innatism is a philosophical doctrine that holds that the mind is born with ideas/knowledge, and that therefore the mind is not a 'blank slate
' at birth, as early empiricists such as John Locke
claimed. It asserts therefore that not all knowledge is obtained from experience and the senses.
Knowledge innatism seems to entail idea innatism.
Idea innatism does not necessarily entail knowledge innatism, although this is debatable.
An innatist might endorse an innatist account of ideas, or of knowledge, or (the most common innatist position) of both ideas and knowledge
and Descartes who assumed that innate ideas and principles are placed in the human mind by a God or an equivalent being or process.
Nativism represents an adaptation of this, grounded in the fields of genetics
, cognitive psychology
and psycholinguistics
. Nativists hold that innate beliefs are in some way genetically programmed to arise in our mind, that is to say that innate beliefs are the phenotypes of certain genotypes that all humans have in common.
and Jerry Fodor
(although the latter has adopted a more critical attitude towards nativism in his later writings). The nativist’s general objection against empiricism
is still the same as was raised by the rationalists
: the human mind of a newborn child is not a tabula rasa
, but equipped with an inborn structure.
and psychology
, an innate idea is a concept
or item of knowledge
which is said to be universal
to all humanity
—that is, something people are born with rather than something people have learned through experience.
The issue is controversial, and can be said to be an aspect of a long-running nature versus nurture
debate, albeit one localized to the question of understanding human cognition
.
For example, the philosopher René Descartes
theorized that knowledge of God
is innate in everybody as a product of the faculty of faith.
Other philosophers, most notably the empiricists
, were critical of the theory and denied the existence of any innate ideas, saying all human knowledge was founded on experience, rather than a priori
reasoning.
Philosophically, the debate over innate ideas is central to the conflict between rationalist
and empiricist
epistemologies. Whilst rationalists believe that certain ideas exist independently of experience, empiricism claims that all knowledge is derived from experience.
Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz
suggested that we are born with certain innate ideas, the most identifiable of these being mathematical truism
s. The idea that 1 + 1 = 2 is evident to us without the necessity for empirical evidence. Leibniz argues that empiricism can only show us that concepts are true in the present; if we see one stick and then another we know that in that instance, and in that instance only, one and another equals two. If, however, we wish to suggest that one and another will always equal two, we require an innate idea, as we are talking about things as yet unwitnessed.
Leibniz called such concepts as mathematical truisms "necessary truths". Another example of such may be the phrase, "what is, is" or "it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be". Leibniz argues that such truism
s are universally assented to (acknowledged by all to be true) and, this being the case, it must be due to their status as innate ideas. Often there are ideas that are acknowledged as necessarily true but are not universally assented to. Leibniz would suggest that this is simply because the person in question has not become aware of the innate idea, not because they do not possess it. Leibniz argues that empirical evidence can serve to bring to the surface certain principles that are already innately embedded in our minds. This is rather like needing to hear only the first few notes in order to recall the rest of the melody.
The main antagonist to the concept of innate ideas is John Locke
, a contemporary of Leibniz. Locke argued that the mind is in fact devoid of all knowledge or ideas at birth; it is a blank sheet or tabula rasa. He argued that all our ideas are constructed in the mind via a process of constant composition and decomposition of the input that we receive through our senses.
Locke, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
, suggests that the concept of universal assent in fact proves nothing, except perhaps that everyone is in agreement; in short universal assent proves that there is universal assent and nothing else. Moreover, Locke goes on to suggest that in fact there is no universal assent. Even a phrase such as "What is, is" is not universally assented to, infants and severely handicapped adults do not generally acknowledge this truism
. Locke also attacks the idea that an innate idea can be imprinted on the mind without the owner realizing it. To return to the musical analogy, we may not be able to recall the entire melody until we hear the first few notes, but we were aware of the fact that we knew the melody and that upon hearing the first few notes we would be able to recall the rest.
Locke ends his attack upon innate ideas by suggesting that the mind is a tabula rasa
or "blank slate", and that all ideas come from experience; all our knowledge is founded in sensory experience.
Essentially, the same knowledge thought to be a priori by Leibniz is in fact, according to Locke, the result of empirical knowledge, which has a lost origin [been forgotten] in respect to the inquirer. However, the inquirer is not cognisant of this fact; and thus, he experiences what he believes to be a priori knowledge.
, Plato raises an important epistemological quandary: How is it that we have certain ideas which are not conclusively derivable from our environments? Noam Chomsky
has taken this problem as a philosophical framework for the scientific enquiry into innatism. His linguistic theory, which derives from 18th century classical-liberal
thinkers such as Wilhelm von Humboldt
, attempts to explain in cognitive terms how we can develop knowledge of systems which are too rich and complex to be derived from our environment. One such example is our linguistic faculty. Our linguistic systems contain a systemic complexity which could not be empirically derived. The environment is too variable and indeterminate, according to Chomsky, to explain the extraordinary ability to learn complex concepts possessed by very young children. It follows that humans must be born with a universal innate grammar, which is determinate and has a highly organized directive component, and enables the language learner to ascertain and categorize language heard into a system. Noam Chomsky cites as evidence for this theory the apparent invariability of human languages at a fundamental level. In this way, linguistics has provided a window into the human mind, and has established scientific theories of innateness which were previously merely speculative.
One implication of Noam Chomsky's innatism is that at least a part of human knowledge consists in cognitive predispositions, which are triggered and developed by the environment, but not determined by it. Parallels can then be drawn, on a purely speculative level, between our moral faculties and language, as has been done by sociobiologists such as E. O. Wilson
and evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker
. The relative consistency of fundamental notions of morality across cultures seems to produce convincing evidence for these theories. In psychology, notions of archetypes such as those developed by Carl Jung
, suggest determinate identity perceptions.
Blank Slate
Blank Slate is an initiative run by UK film production company B3 Media that seeks to develop and nurture film making talent from a minority background...
' at birth, as early empiricists such as John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
claimed. It asserts therefore that not all knowledge is obtained from experience and the senses.
Innate ideas
Analysts sometimes divide the philosophy of innatism into two areas:- knowledge innatism - this doctrine asserts that humans have access to knowledge which they possess innately
- idea innatism (also known as concept innatism) - this doctrine asserts that humans have access to certain inborn ideas
Knowledge innatism seems to entail idea innatism.
Idea innatism does not necessarily entail knowledge innatism, although this is debatable.
An innatist might endorse an innatist account of ideas, or of knowledge, or (the most common innatist position) of both ideas and knowledge
The difference between innatism and nativism
In general usage the terms innatism and nativism are synonymous as they both refer to notions of preexisting ideas present in the mind. However, more correctly innatism refers to the philosophy of PlatoPlato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
and Descartes who assumed that innate ideas and principles are placed in the human mind by a God or an equivalent being or process.
Nativism represents an adaptation of this, grounded in the fields of genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....
and psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were largely philosophical ventures, due mainly to a lack of cohesive data on how the...
. Nativists hold that innate beliefs are in some way genetically programmed to arise in our mind, that is to say that innate beliefs are the phenotypes of certain genotypes that all humans have in common.
Nativism
Nativism is a modern view rooted in innatism. The advocates of nativism are mainly philosophers who also work in the field of cognitive psychology or psycholinguistics: most notably Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
and Jerry Fodor
Jerry Fodor
Jerry Alan Fodor is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. He holds the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and is the author of many works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, in which he has laid the groundwork for the...
(although the latter has adopted a more critical attitude towards nativism in his later writings). The nativist’s general objection against empiricism
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
is still the same as was raised by the rationalists
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
: the human mind of a newborn child is not a tabula rasa
Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...
, but equipped with an inborn structure.
Examples of proposed innate knowledge
Innatism is invoked to explain how we can have knowledge of certain propositions that seem to go beyond experience, either (i) because of its universal applicability, or because (ii) its subject matter transcends experiential reality. Examples of the notions include:- Ethical truths
- The notion of causalityCausalityCausality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
, that all events have a cause - Notions of good and evil
- Logical and mathematical truths
- MetaphysicalMetaphysicsMetaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
notions concerning transcendentTranscendence (religion)In religion transcendence refers to the aspect of God's nature which is wholly independent of the physical universe. This is contrasted with immanence where God is fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways...
objects like GodGodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
or soulSoulA soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
s - Avoidance of hazards (such as heights or potential sources of contagious diseaseContagious diseaseA contagious disease is a subset category of infectious diseases , which are easily transmitted by physical contact with the person suffering the disease, or by their secretions or objects touched by them....
)
Innate idea
In philosophyPhilosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, an innate idea is a concept
Concept
The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
or item of knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
which is said to be universal
Universality (philosophy)
In philosophy, universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to relativism. In certain religions, universality is the quality ascribed to an entity whose existence is consistent throughout the universe...
to all humanity
Human Race
Human Race refers to the Human species.Human race may also refer to:*The Human Race, 79th episode of YuYu Hakusho* Human Race Theatre Company of Dayton Ohio* Human Race Machine, a computer graphics device...
—that is, something people are born with rather than something people have learned through experience.
The issue is controversial, and can be said to be an aspect of a long-running nature versus nurture
Nature versus nurture
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities versus personal experiences The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences...
debate, albeit one localized to the question of understanding human cognition
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
.
Philosophical debate
Although individual human beings obviously vary due to cultural, linguistic and era-specific influences, innate ideas are said to belong to a more fundamental level of human cognition.For example, the philosopher René Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
theorized that knowledge of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
is innate in everybody as a product of the faculty of faith.
Other philosophers, most notably the empiricists
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
, were critical of the theory and denied the existence of any innate ideas, saying all human knowledge was founded on experience, rather than a priori
A priori and a posteriori (philosophy)
The terms a priori and a posteriori are used in philosophy to distinguish two types of knowledge, justifications or arguments...
reasoning.
Philosophically, the debate over innate ideas is central to the conflict between rationalist
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
and empiricist
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
epistemologies. Whilst rationalists believe that certain ideas exist independently of experience, empiricism claims that all knowledge is derived from experience.
Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
suggested that we are born with certain innate ideas, the most identifiable of these being mathematical truism
Truism
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device and is the opposite of falsism....
s. The idea that 1 + 1 = 2 is evident to us without the necessity for empirical evidence. Leibniz argues that empiricism can only show us that concepts are true in the present; if we see one stick and then another we know that in that instance, and in that instance only, one and another equals two. If, however, we wish to suggest that one and another will always equal two, we require an innate idea, as we are talking about things as yet unwitnessed.
Leibniz called such concepts as mathematical truisms "necessary truths". Another example of such may be the phrase, "what is, is" or "it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be". Leibniz argues that such truism
Truism
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device and is the opposite of falsism....
s are universally assented to (acknowledged by all to be true) and, this being the case, it must be due to their status as innate ideas. Often there are ideas that are acknowledged as necessarily true but are not universally assented to. Leibniz would suggest that this is simply because the person in question has not become aware of the innate idea, not because they do not possess it. Leibniz argues that empirical evidence can serve to bring to the surface certain principles that are already innately embedded in our minds. This is rather like needing to hear only the first few notes in order to recall the rest of the melody.
The main antagonist to the concept of innate ideas is John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, a contemporary of Leibniz. Locke argued that the mind is in fact devoid of all knowledge or ideas at birth; it is a blank sheet or tabula rasa. He argued that all our ideas are constructed in the mind via a process of constant composition and decomposition of the input that we receive through our senses.
Locke, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
First appearing in 1690 with the printed title An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke concerns the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate filled later through experience...
, suggests that the concept of universal assent in fact proves nothing, except perhaps that everyone is in agreement; in short universal assent proves that there is universal assent and nothing else. Moreover, Locke goes on to suggest that in fact there is no universal assent. Even a phrase such as "What is, is" is not universally assented to, infants and severely handicapped adults do not generally acknowledge this truism
Truism
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device and is the opposite of falsism....
. Locke also attacks the idea that an innate idea can be imprinted on the mind without the owner realizing it. To return to the musical analogy, we may not be able to recall the entire melody until we hear the first few notes, but we were aware of the fact that we knew the melody and that upon hearing the first few notes we would be able to recall the rest.
Locke ends his attack upon innate ideas by suggesting that the mind is a tabula rasa
Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...
or "blank slate", and that all ideas come from experience; all our knowledge is founded in sensory experience.
Essentially, the same knowledge thought to be a priori by Leibniz is in fact, according to Locke, the result of empirical knowledge, which has a lost origin [been forgotten] in respect to the inquirer. However, the inquirer is not cognisant of this fact; and thus, he experiences what he believes to be a priori knowledge.
Scientific ideas
In his MenoMeno
Meno is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. It attempts to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning virtue in general, rather than particular virtues, such as justice or temperance. The first part of the work is written in the Socratic dialectical style and Meno is reduced to...
, Plato raises an important epistemological quandary: How is it that we have certain ideas which are not conclusively derivable from our environments? Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
has taken this problem as a philosophical framework for the scientific enquiry into innatism. His linguistic theory, which derives from 18th century classical-liberal
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
thinkers such as Wilhelm von Humboldt
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt was a German philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of Humboldt Universität. He is especially remembered as a linguist who made important contributions to the philosophy of language and to the theory and practice...
, attempts to explain in cognitive terms how we can develop knowledge of systems which are too rich and complex to be derived from our environment. One such example is our linguistic faculty. Our linguistic systems contain a systemic complexity which could not be empirically derived. The environment is too variable and indeterminate, according to Chomsky, to explain the extraordinary ability to learn complex concepts possessed by very young children. It follows that humans must be born with a universal innate grammar, which is determinate and has a highly organized directive component, and enables the language learner to ascertain and categorize language heard into a system. Noam Chomsky cites as evidence for this theory the apparent invariability of human languages at a fundamental level. In this way, linguistics has provided a window into the human mind, and has established scientific theories of innateness which were previously merely speculative.
One implication of Noam Chomsky's innatism is that at least a part of human knowledge consists in cognitive predispositions, which are triggered and developed by the environment, but not determined by it. Parallels can then be drawn, on a purely speculative level, between our moral faculties and language, as has been done by sociobiologists such as E. O. Wilson
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
and evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author...
. The relative consistency of fundamental notions of morality across cultures seems to produce convincing evidence for these theories. In psychology, notions of archetypes such as those developed by Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, suggest determinate identity perceptions.
See also
- AnamnesisAnamnesis (philosophy)In philosophy, anamnesis is a concept in Plato's epistemological and psychological theory that he develops in his dialogues Meno and Phaedo, and alludes to it in his Phaedrus.-Meno:...
- Psychological nativismPsychological nativismIn the field of psychology, nativism is the view that certain skills or abilities are 'native' or hard wired into the brain at birth. This is in contrast to empiricism, the 'blank slate' or tabula rasa view, which states that the brain has inborn capabilities for learning from the environment but...
- InstinctInstinctInstinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.The simplest example of an instinctive behavior is a fixed action pattern, in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a...
- Tabula rasaTabula rasaTabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...
- FitraFitraFitra, or fitrah , is an Arabic word meaning ‘disposition’, ‘nature’, ‘constitution’, or ‘instinct’. In a mystical context, it can connote intuition or insight...
- Nature versus nurtureNature versus nurtureThe nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities versus personal experiences The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences...
- ConceptConceptThe word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
- EmpiricismEmpiricismEmpiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
- IdeaIdeaIn the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images...
- RationalismRationalismIn epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
- PlatoPlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
- Descartes
- John LockeJohn LockeJohn Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
- Noam ChomskyNoam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
- Jerry FodorJerry FodorJerry Alan Fodor is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. He holds the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and is the author of many works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, in which he has laid the groundwork for the...