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1. INTRODUCTION: MODES OF KNOWLEDGE

 

This book is about the theory of knowledge, focussing especially on debates between empiricism and various forms of rationalism. In this first chapter I shall outline the nature of my project, which is to re-assess the claims of classical empiricism from our present perspective.

 

Problems of Knowledge

We can distinguish three dimensions along which theories of knowledge may differ from one another. There can be dispute about the extent of human knowledge, the sources of human knowledge, as well as about what knowledge itself is. I shall say something briefly about each of these three dimensions in turn.

            First, philosophers may disagree with one another about the extent of human knowledge, about how much we may be said to know. At one end of the scale are various kinds of sceptic, who claim that we know very little, or at least a good deal less than we think we do. Extreme sceptics claim, for example, that we can know nothing beyond our own current states of consciousness - that is, our own present thoughts and experiences. At the other end of the scale are various sorts of realist, who maintain that we know a good deal about ourselves and the world around us. Between these two poles there is space for many intermediate positions. One which may be worth mentioning in particular, is phenomenalism. Phenomenalists allow that most of our ordinary beliefs about physical objects do constitute knowledge, but only under a particular (non-realist) interpretation. They claim that such beliefs do not really concern a world of objects existing independently of our minds, but relate only to recurring patterns within our experience. When I speak of the chair on which I am sitting, for example, they claim that I am really only referring to a familiar bundle of experiences, which is apt to recur periodically within the stream of my consciousness. So while I do perhaps know that the chair exists, and may continue to know this even in its absence, this is not really knowledge of anything outside of my own mind.

            Secondly, there may be disagreement about the possible sources of human knowledge, about the avenues through which we may hope to obtain knowledge. At one extreme is the position adopted by classical empiricists such as Locke and Hume, who claim that the only source of substantive knowledge is experience (understood broadly, to include both memory and introspection). At the other extreme is the view of Plato, who holds, on the contrary, that experience cannot yield genuine knowledge, since it concerns states and objects which are constantly changing. He claims that the only source of true knowledge is the human intellect, which may obtain for us knowledge of the unchanging world of Forms, or universals. In between these two, lies the position of classical rationalists such as Descartes and Leibniz, who maintain that knowledge may be obtained both through experience and through the use of pure intellect. Plato's view has been endorsed by almost no one since, and need not detain us here. It derives from his peculiar conception of the nature of knowledge. But we shall be very much concerned with the dispute between classical empiricism and classical rationalism. Indeed, it will form the main focus of this book.

            Finally, philosophers may disagree about what knowledge itself is, about how the concept of knowledge should properly be defined. This issue has not loomed very large in the work of most theorists of knowledge since Plato, at least until very recently. But in our own era a variety of accounts have been proposed. All are agreed that in order to count as knowledge something must at least be believed and be true - you cannot know that grass is green unless you believe that grass is green, and unless it is in fact true that grass is green. All are equally agreed that there is more to knowledge than mere true belief. Differences arise as to what the third component of knowledge might be. Some hold that it is justification, some that it is causation by the fact which is believed to obtain, some that it is causation by a reliable process. We shall return to these issues in some detail in chapter 5.

            It is usual for books on the theory of knowledge to begin with a discussion of scepticism. I propose, however, to reserve my consideration of this issue until last. For how we handle it may depend very much upon what we think about the nature of knowledge, and its possible sources. Moreover, there are, in any case, a good many issues which can be discussed without referring to the problem of scepticism. These are probably best treated first. For in my experience, when someone has once been introduced to the problem of scepticism it is hard to persuade them to take seriously any other issue in the theory of knowledge. However, it is true that any conclusions we may reach can only be provisional. For if, in the end, the extreme sceptic cannot be answered, then it may turn out that we can know nothing about any of these other issues.

            What is distinctive about contemporary debates in the theory of knowledge is that they mostly bypass altogether the question of the possible sources of human knowlege. All the attention is devoted to what knowledge itself is, and to attempts to defend or to undermine various forms of scepticism. It will be one of the themes of this book that such a concentration of effort is a mistake. In my view, the correct definition of knowledge is a good deal less significant than is sometimes thought. And it should be obvious that the question of the extent of human knowledge simply cannot be answered without considering its possible sources. On this issue (as, arguably, on many others) we can only make progress by returning to the historical roots of our current debates. Accordingly, I shall now say something further about the dispute between empiricists and rationalists concerning the question of how knowledge may be obtained, focussing initially on how empiricism itself should properly be characterised.

 

Empiricism: an initial sketch

Empiricists have defended two distinctive negative theses about the sources of human knowledge, which may or may not be intimately connected with one another (I shall leave this open for the moment). First, they have been opposed to any form of nativism, for example denying that any concept or any knowledge is innate (in-born). Secondly, they have denied that we may obtain substantial knowledge of the world a priori, insisting rather that all such knowledge must be grounded in experience. (The notion of the a priori can be understood in either of two distinct ways - most usually, as knowledge which can be arrived at by a process of thought alone, or alternatively, as knowledge which is not learned from experience. The difference is not presently important, but will later prove so.) I shall shortly say something about each of these strands, returning to them in greater detail in subsequent chapters. But first I want to make some remarks about further candidates for inclusion in our initial characterisation of empiricism.

            Most empiricists have also been foundationalists, maintaining that the architecture of our knowledge consists of a superstructure supported by foundations. They have held that some of our beliefs, particularly reports of immediate experience or sense-data, have a privileged position with respect to the others, providing them with their ultimate support. (In contrast, coherentists hold that knowledge may be characterised as a set of mutually coherent and supportive true beliefs. While foundationalists picture knowledge in the shape of a building, standing on a foundation, coherentists picture it as a sort of net - perhaps spinning unsupported in deep space - held together by the internal tensions between its elements.) But foundationalism can hardly have been distinctive of empiricism, since all classic rationalists, too, have shared a similar commitment to it. Descartes, for example, held that all knowledge must be founded on the data of immediate experience together with simple truths of reason. However, foundationalism may turn out to be a necessary ingredient in empiricism, even if it is by no means distinctive of it. This possibility will be left open for now.

            A more plausible candidate for inclusion in our initial account of empiricism is a commitment to phenomenalism, since most empiricists have believed that all our knowledge must in the end reduce to knowledge of patterns in our own subjective experience. But there are two things wrong with this suggestion. The first is that it ignores the position of Locke, who certainly thought that we could have knowledge of objects outside ourselves.¹ Admittedly, his arguments for this view were weak, and most later empiricists have believed that he was inconsistent in failing to embrace phenomenalism, given his general claims about the genesis of concepts and of knowledge. But be that as it may, we can hardly maintain that a commitment to phenomenalism was fundamental to his position, given his own explicit rejection of the doctrine.

            The second thing wrong with the above suggestion is that phenomenalism is best viewed as a consequence of the three strands already mentioned, rather than as a distinct concern in its own right. For the rejection of nativism means that all our beliefs must in the end be decomposable into concepts which can be derived from experience. This, together with foundationalism, then accords the data of immediate experience a central position within the overall structure of our knowledge. But then when this is combined with opposition to substantive a priori knowledge, we appear to have the implication that our knowledge can reach no further than patterns within the data of immediate experience itself. I shall return to consider the possible connection between phenomenalism and anti-nativism in more detail in chapter 11. For the moment the issue may be left to one side.

            One further candidate for inclusion in our initial characterisation of empiricism would be a commitment to the imagist theory of thinking. On this view, all thoughts consist of sequences of mental images, and all concepts come to represent their objects in virtue of resembling them. While Locke's commitment to imagism is half-hearted, and does no serious work within the argumentative structure of the Essay, in the writings of Berkeley and Hume it appears to be more significant. For example, in the Principles of Human Knowledge Berkeley argues from imagism as a premiss, to the conclusion that it is impossible for us even to think about an independent material reality, claiming that an idea can be like - can resemble - nothing but another idea, and that it is impossible for us to image an unexperienced object. Hume, too, seems to endorse such a position.²

            However, it is doubtful whether imagism is really independent of the two negative strands in empiricism already mentioned, particularly opposition to nativism. For the major attraction of imagism, for empiricists, is that it provides them with an apparently plausible theory of concept acquisition. If concepts are images - mental pictures - then it is easy to see how they might be acquired through experience, by a process of copying. On this account, the concepts which we deploy in thinking will be simply reproduced aspects of experience, laid down earlier in memory. We shall return to empiricist theories of concept acquisition in some detail in chapter 4. For the moment, the point is that there is no reason to include a commitment to imagism within our primary characterisation of empiricism. Rather, that commitment is best understood as a natural consequence of the empiricist thesis that all concepts must be acquired from experience.

 

Representation and Truth

We have just now touched upon issues which have been the subject of much recent debate amongst philosophers of mind and of language, concerning the nature of representation, and of truth. What all are now united on is that the imagist theory of thought is hopelessly inadequate, but there is agreement upon little else. Some strands in this debate need to be mentioned briefly here, if only to be set to one side.³

            One issue of note concerns the contrast which can be drawn between coherence conceptions of truth on the one hand, and correspondence conceptions on the other. While coherentists about knowledge hold (as we saw briefly above) that the justification for a belief consists in its membership of a suitably coherent set of beliefs, coherentists about truth go further. They maintain that for a belief to be true just is for it to be a member of a suitably coherent set. Correspondence theorists, on the other hand, maintain that for a belief to be true is for it to correspond to the facts. Minimally, they maintain that for a belief or statement to be true, there must be some fact - some state of affairs - in virtue of which it is true. The idea here is that our beliefs have to measure up to an independently given reality. I intend to presuppose a correspondence conception of truth throughout the course of this book, for reasons which I shall now briefly explain.

            An obvious difficulty for coherence conceptions of truth, is that it then seems quite possible that a belief might be true at one time but false at another, without there being any relevant change in its subject matter. For example, the belief that the Earth is flat formed part of a coherent and mutually supportive set of beliefs in the fifteenth century, but no longer does so today. Does this then mean that it was once true that the Earth is flat, but that it is so no longer? Coherentists appear to have two possible avenues of response. One is to claim that representation, and hence belief-content, are also a matter of coherence. On this account there will be no genuine conflict between our beliefs and those of the fifteenth century because, through being embedded within different coherent sets, the beliefs which they assert are not the same as the ones that we deny. The other option is to introduce a considerable degree of idealisation into the account of coherence, for example claiming that to count as true a belief must belong to a set which incorporates and explains all possible past and future observational data.

            Neither of the above options appears at all attractive. It seems undeniable that I do contradict the beliefs of the fifteenth century by asserting that the Earth is round. And even if we can imagine what it would be like to be in possession of a maximally coherent theory incorporating all possible observational data, it seems to remain an open question whether or not that theory would be true - whether it would match up to the facts. Indeed, the coherence conception of truth (like phenomenalism, as we shall see in chapter 11) is best understood as a retreat from an initial realism designed to outflank scepticism, by defining truth as what our best (most coherent) theory would describe. But if it is possible to argue against scepticism directly, as I shall suggest in chapters 11 and 12 that it is, then the coherence theory of truth will be inadequately motivated.

            Even amongst those who endorse some version of correspondence theory of truth, there remain disputes about the extent to which truth is genuinely objective. Realists about truth maintain that it is, each one of our beliefs about the world being determinately true or false irrespective of whether we are capable (either in practice or in principle) of discovering its status. Anti-realists, in contrast, maintain that truth is constrained by relations of epistemic accessibility - in its strongest version, claiming that there is no truth except verifiable truth;⁴ in weaker versions, claiming that there can only be truth were there can be evidence which bears on truth.⁵ Since this is a dispute arising out of considerations in the theory of meaning (or of representation generally), it would take us too far out of our way to discuss it properly here. But my own position is that it is in virtue of our conceptual capacities - our abilities to identify and classify items in the world - that our thoughts come to represent what they do;⁶ and that our best theory of our conceptual capacities, when embedded within our best theory of the material world and our relation to it, is one which supports a realist conception of truth. I shall return to the matter briefly in chapter 12. For the most part I shall simply assume, for purposes of argument, that truth is indeed objective. Our question is whether we have knowledge of any truths, and if so how - that is, whether we may be realists about knowledge as well as realists about truth.

 

Two Strands in Empiricism

Let me now return to consider the two main strands within the empiricist tradition in a little more detail. Empiricists, as I say, have been united in their opposition to nativism, whether concerning innate knowledge, innate beliefs, innate concepts, or innate mental structures embodying information about particular domains of knowledge, such as language or vision. They have insisted, on the contrary, that all our knowledge and beliefs must in one way or another be derived from experience; that all concepts must either be abstractable from experience or definable in terms of concepts which can be so abstracted; and that all the psychological mechanisms involved in learning are general ones, the same for all domains of knowledge. Here there is sharp conflict with those who belong to the rationalist tradition, including Plato, Descartes and Leibniz (as well as contemporary writers such as Noam Chomsky and Jerry Fodor). Much of our attention in this book will be focussed on this debate, especially in chapters 4 to 8.

            While empiricists have been opposed to nativism in any of the above forms, it is worth stressing that they have not rejected all forms of innateness. On the contrary, they have characteristically held that the division of the mind into distinct faculties (for example, into sensation, imagination and understanding) is innately given. They have also held that the basic psychological processes involved in the various modes of acquiring our beliefs are innate, such as principles of association amongst our ideas. (Indeed, they are surely obliged to hold such a view. For one cannot, from nothing, learn how to learn.) Some empiricists have even held views which can be described as naturalistic, relying upon aspects of an innately given human nature to provide part of their suggested solution to some problem. For example, Hume's position concerning our belief in the continued existence of physical objects is naturalistic in this sense, since he holds that, given our nature, we cannot but believe that items such as tables and chairs continue to exist unperceived.⁷ But this is not to ascribe to us innate knowledge of the physical world. Nor is it to claim that the faculty through which we acquire this belief (the faculty of imagination, in Hume's view) is structured in such a way as to contain innate information about the world. His idea is simply that the general laws of human psychology ensure that we shall have beliefs concerning the continued existence of physical objects, irrespective of sceptical arguments to the contrary.⁸

            Empiricists have also been united in denying that we can attain substantial knowledge of the world a priori. They have insisted, on the contrary, that all substantial knowledge is empirical, needing to be grounded in experience. They were then immediately presented with a challenge. Namely, to provide some account of our knowledge of logic and mathematics, neither of which appears to be at all empirical. I shall now spend some time outlining and discussing the manner in which empiricists have attempted to reply to this challenge.

            The majority have chosen to respond via a particular interpretation of the subject-matter of those disciplines, such as mathematics, which are a priori. They have claimed that the truths of logic and mathematics are analytic, being concerned only with internal relations between our concepts (ideas) themselves. So the knowledge which we have of these truths does not concern any aspect of the world independent of our minds, except in so far as our concepts may have been derived from experience of such a world. Here empiricism may properly be contrasted with platonism. For the platonist believes, on the contrary, that the propositions of logic and mathematics concern an abstract (non-physical and changeless) but genuinely mind-independent realm of objects, including universals such as beauty and wisdom, as well as mathematical entities such as the natural numbers (1, 2, 3 etc.) and the perfect square. This debate, too, will occupy us considerably in the chapters which follow, especially in chapters 2 and 3, and again in chapter 10.

            Some empiricists have been inclined to disparage analytic truths as being trivial and uninformative. This was a definite mistake. Plainly some analytic truths are trivial - neither 'Everything is identical with itself' nor 'It is either raining or not raining' are likely to be news to anyone. But many are not, only being recognised for the first time after the collaborative labour of many generations of thinkers. Indeed, a great many important scientific discoveries have only been made possible by conceptual or mathematical advance. This is why I elected to characterise the present strand in empiricism by saying that it consists in denying that there is substantial a priori knowledge of the world, rather than by saying that it is the denial of informative a priori knowledge. (By knowledge which is substantial, I shall understand knowledge which is either contingent - as is our knowledge of our own states of mind and our own existence - or which concerns entities which exist independently of the human mind - as does mathematical knowledge, given a platonist account of the subject-matter of mathematics.) In my view the debate between empiricists and platonists ought properly to concern the subject-matter of logic and mathematics, not its usefulness or cognitive significance.

            Some later empiricists (notably Mill and Quine)⁹ have adopted a rather different manner of responding to the challenge provided by our knowledge of logic and mathematics. They have denied that such knowledge (indeed any knowledge) is really a priori. On this view, the propositions of mathematics, like all other propositions, are contingent and empirical - they could possibly be false, and are derived ultimately from experience. But they exist at a high level of abstraction and generality, very far removed from the impact of experience. It is this which gives rise to the illusion that they may genuinely be known independently of the course of our experience, and that they obtain necessarily, in all conceivable situations. Rather, such truths, like any others, are grounded in experience and revisable in principle in the light of future experience. It is just that their connection with experience is not easily noticed, due to their abstractness.

            Quine's famous image of our beliefs as constituting a web, only connecting with experience directly at the periphery, provides a graphic illustration of this idea.¹⁰ We are to picture our beliefs as forming an interconnected network, some of whose members (the periphery) are direct reports of experience, whereas others (such as propositions of logic) are very far removed from it. Changes at the periphery occasion alterations elsewhere in the network, none of our beliefs being immune from possible revision. Which of our beliefs should in fact be revised in face of the changing course of our experience will be a matter of what adjustments would provide us with the most satisfying overall explanation. The truths of logic, although in principle revisable, are hardly ever altered because of the massive changes this would occasion elsewhere in the network. There will almost always be more economical ways of accommodating recalcitrant experiences.

            The trouble with such an account, however, is to explain how any changes in belief may rationally be required of us, if all beliefs are equally empirical. If all of our beliefs face the tribunal of experience together, then there is nothing to give substance to the idea that some adjustments of belief are rationally demanded of us in face of other alterations elsewhere in the network. On the contrary, all changes in the network of belief will be merely causal, it being a purely psychological matter what changes will take place within a subject's beliefs in response to any given experience. In order for the idea of a rationally required change to make sense, some at least of our beliefs must be held constant, functioning as norms which mediate changes amongst the others. This is precisely the role traditionally accorded to the a priori propositions of logic and mathematics.

            However, to insist that propositions of logic and mathematics function as norms, and are hence not empirical (not learned from experience), is not necessarily to grant that their status is inviolable. What an empiricist should say about this matter will depend upon whether or not they think that analytic truths are objective. Some, like Ayer, have held that they are, reflecting mind-independent relations between concepts (whose existence, in turn, is not platonic but mind-dependent).¹¹ Others, following the later Wittgenstein, would deny this, holding that a proposition achieves a priori status somewhat as follows. Finding ourselves psychologically incapable of seeing how a given proposition (such as '15 + 17 = 32') could be false, we adopt the convention of elevating the results of such limitations to the status of a norm of description, using it henceforward to mediate changes between other beliefs. But this status need not be inviolable: what is a necessary truth (a norm) at one time, may cease to be so at another. I shall not pursue these ideas any further in this book.¹² Suffice it to say that even granting that there exists a class of analytic truths, there remain difficult questions concerning the objective or subjective status of such truths.

            We have canvassed two ways in which empiricists, who deny that any substantial knowledge may be obtained a priori, might respond to the challenge provided by logic and mathematics. One is to maintain that our knowledge within these domains, while a priori, is analytic. The other is to deny that our knowledge of logic and mathematics is genuinely a priori. Their only remaining option is apparently to take the radical step of denying that any propositions of logic or mathematics are true. Few empiricists have taken this course, for obvious reasons. But it has been defended recently by Hartry Field.¹³ I shall return to consider this option briefly in chapter 2. But I shall mostly assume that the correct stategy for an empiricist is to allow that logic and mathematics are a priori, and contain many known truths, but to deny that they are substantial - denying that they give us knowledge of anything which exists independently of the human mind.

            Having said something about the questions which belong to the theory of knowledge in general, and the nature of the empiricist movement in particular, it is now time to outline what I plan to do in this book.

 

The Project

The basic aim of this book is to reconstitute and defend the essentials of the empiricist tradition from within our contemporary perspective. The major question to be asked, is whether anyone today can be justified in being an empiricist, or whether, on the contrary, empiricism has now been decisively superceded. I shall be arguing for the former of these options. This is despite the fact that one of the two main strands within classical empiricism (namely, the denial of nativism) has come under increasing pressure in recent years (and rightly so, as we shall see in later chapters). I shall be arguing that the core of empiricism - if properly characterised - remains as vibrant and defensible today as it ever was. My aims are thus both, to provide a particular interpretation of the nature of the empiricist tradition, while also defending that tradition (the latter partly via the former).

            While I shall occasionally comment upon specific classic texts, I shall mostly take the broad outlines of their authors' views for granted. However, it should be emphasised that I shall not take empiricism to be defined at the outset by any particular set of ideas and doctrines - and certainly not by the two main strands already distinguished. For a good deal of what is at issue here, is what constitutes the true core of empiricism. This is a matter, not of explicit doctrines, but of fundamental motivations.

            It may be objected that the term 'empiricism', as generally understood, may simply be defined as the doctrine that all knowledge must be grounded in experience. So questions of motivation arise not at all, and it follows immediately that empiricism is inconsistent with nativism. With this I disagree. While our grasp of empiricism may be partially characterised by the claimed connection between knowledge and experience, it seems to me undeniable that it is also partly governed by our acquaintance with the views defended by those generally known as 'empiricists'. (An analogy from literature: while our understanding of the term 'romanticism' may bring to mind a particular definition, it is also partially characterised by our knowledge of the works of those generally described as 'romantics'.) It is this text-based strand in the notion of empiricism which becomes primary when we raise the question of our own relationship to traditional empiricism. In this sort of case what we wish to know, is whether our own views are or are not in conformity with the basic concerns of earlier empiricists. Our question is the extent to which we may count ourselves as belonging to the same tradition of thought.

            Rather than understand empiricism to be defined by any particular set of doctrines, I shall take the central texts of Locke and Hume as representative of the motivation behind empiricism in general, particularly the former's Essay and the latter's Treatise and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. For I think that if these authors had never written, one would never have thought of seeing enough in common between philosophers such as Bacon, Hobbes and Berkeley to describe them all as 'empiricists'; but that the reverse is not the case.

            The issue before us may usefully be considered in terms of the notions of core and periphery. What we shall need, is to distinguish between those aspects of the empiricist tradition which consitute its core (which are genuinely essential to it), and those which are merely peripheral (which could be given up without losing anything of fundamental importance). This is a matter of discovering what it was that classic empiricists were most concerned to establish or show. For if, as I shall argue, the empiricist opposition to nativism turns out to be a definite mistake, then we shall need to know whether this aspect of the tradition may simply be cut away from the remainder, leaving a coherent body of doctrine intact which is still recognisably empiricist in spirit. We shall therefore need to know which, if either, of the two main strands in classical empiricism is the more fundamental, or whether there might be some further characterisation of the core of empiricism which would explain its commitment to both.

            Successful completion of my project will thus require two things. First, an assessment of the truth or falsity of the two main doctrines which have traditionally been defended by empiricists. This task will occupy us through the major part of this book. Secondly, we shall need an account of the essential core of empiricism which will embrace what is true, while allowing us to exclude what is false. This will form the topic of chapters 9 and 10, although I shall also say something briefly about the matter shortly.

            The course of the argument will proceed roughly as follows. In chapters 2 and 3 I shall consider the empiricists' rejection of subtantive a priori knowledge, focussing particularly on their rejection of platonism. In chapter 2 I shall consider the case which can be made out in support of platonism. Then in chapter 3 I shall consider, both how an empiricist might try to undermine that case, and their positive reasons for thinking platonism to be false. This will be the most technical chapter of the book, and readers are advised to take it slowly. My conclusion will be that the grounds for the empiricist rejection of substantive a priori knowledge are indeed powerful.

            Then in chapters 4 to 8 I shall consider the empiricist rejection of nativism. In chapter 4 I shall discuss Locke's arguments against innate knowledge and innate concepts. In chapter 5 I shall consider whether the very idea of innate knowledge is incoherent, by virtue of our conception of what knowledge itself is. In chapter 6 I shall consider the case provided by contemporary cognitive science for innate information-bearing mental structures, concentrating on Chomsky's arguments for an innately structured language-faculty. In chapter 7 I shall consider the case for saying that there are innate concepts, considering particularly the arguments of Fodor. Then in chapter 8 I shall consider the case for saying that we possess substantive innate knowledge, in particular of truths concerning our own psychology. My conclusion will be that the empiricist case against nativism is lamentably weak, and that at least some of our knowledge and concepts are very probably innate.

            Given this situation - with one strand in classical empiricism endorsed and one rejected - we then face the question of the fate of the movement as a whole. In particular, we need to know whether the rejection of nativism was truly an essential part of the empiricist project. In chapters 9 and 10 I shall argue that it was not. Rather, the core of empiricism consisted in a certain sort of naturalism (distinct from that briefly characterised above). The main concern was to insist that claims to knowledge should only be endorsed where we can begin to give an account, in terms of natural processes, of the manner in which that knowledge might have arisen in us. The reason why the early empiricists rejected nativism, I shall argue, is that the only form of account available to them at the time, of how a belief or concept might come to be innate, was a non-natural one, namely direct intervention by God. But now with the advent of evolutionary theory, we can remain true to the empiricist project while at the same time embracing nativism.

            In the final two chapters I shall explore the consequences of this result for the problem of scepticism, treating separately the problem of induction and the problem of the external world. Here I shall argue that, given commitments to certain sorts of nativism, solutions to these problems may readily be constructed. Indeed, it will turn out that not only the classical empiricists' rejection of nativism, but also their tendency towards scepticism or phenomenalism, were historical accidents. Each resulted from the scientific ignorance of the time, rather than from any essential aspect of the empiricist enterprise. The final position will be an empiricism denuded of its opposition to nativism (while still retaining the classic opposition to substantive a priori knowledge), endorsing a robust realism about our knowledge of the physical world. This position, I argue, is not only distinctively empiricist, but true.

 

On to chapter 2