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4. THE EMPIRICIST CASE
AGAINST NATIVISM
Few empiricists besides Locke have bothered
to present explicit arguments against nativism, mostly taking its falsity for
granted. In the present chapter I shall consider whether Locke's case is really
powerful enough to justify such an attitude.
Locke on Innate Knowledge
Locke's main argument against the existence
of innate knowledge in Book I of the Essay, is that the various supposed
innate truths (for example, 'God exists' and 'Whatever is, is') are not in fact
universally assented to. He cites the examples of children and madmen, many of
whom will not assent to such propositions if they are put to them. Locke is
therefore assuming that innate knowledge would, if it existed, necessarily have
to be present in everyone, and also that it would have to be available to
consciousness from birth. As we shall see, both of these assumptions are false.
The
argument from madmen is certainly a bad one. To say that something is innate
for human beings, is to say that all normal members of the species will possess
it, not that all without exception will do so. Consider, for example, the fact
of possessing ten toes. This is surely an innate feature of human beings. But
some humans will in fact have less, and some more. Some may have lost a toe in
an accident; and occasionally babies are born with an extra toe, or with a toe
missing. So the fact that madmen (who on any account of the matter are not
normal human beings) lack some knowledge that the rest of us possess, does not
show that such knowledge is not innate.
The
argument from children is also unsound, but needs to be handled somewhat
differently. A natural first response to it, would be to claim that innate
knowledge might be latent in children - that is to say: it is there, but
not yet available to consciousness. Locke anticipates this reply, and responds
by adopting what might be called 'The principle of mental transparency'. He
claims that there cannot be anything in the mind which the subject is unaware
of. But this principle is surely indefensible. Nor need we commit the
anachronism of appealing to Freudian theories of the unconscious to show as
much. For consider the every-day phenomenon of temporary memory loss. You may
know that you know your mother's birthday, but be unable for the moment to
recall it. Then an hour later you may be able to remember it again. If we
accepted the principle of mental transparency, we should have to say that you
started by having the knowledge of your mother's birthday, then you lost it,
and then you acquired it again without any process of learning. This is surely
absurd. Rather, we should say that the knowledge was in you throughout,
but that for a short period it was not accessible to consciousness.
While
Locke's explicit argument against latent innate knowledge is inadequate, it may
seem that he has a valid point nevertheless. For are we really prepared to
accept that a new-born infant has its head already stocked with a range of
actual (if as yet merely latent) knowledge? One way of developing this point is
to notice that you cannot have knowledge of something unless you also believe
it. (You cannot know that the Earth is getting warmer unless you at
least believe that the Earth is getting warmer.) And what constitutes a
mental state as a state of belief is that it is apt to interact with your other
mental states (particularly desires and intentions) in such a way as to control
behaviour. Thus what makes the difference between believing that the
Earth is getting warmer, as opposed to hoping that it is, for example,
is that you are prepared if necessary to act on it. You may consider moving to
Iceland, or stop using aerosols (depending upon your other beliefs, and on what
it is that you want). Then since an infant cannot manifest any of the
appropriate behaviour, it would seem that it cannot have articulate beliefs
either.
This
argument is perhaps overly swift, however. For even if an infant cannot be said
to be born already possessing beliefs, it may be that it is born with a stored
stock of propositions. These may start by being inert, but then become
knowledge as soon as the child is old enough to be conscious of them. Yet even
this may strike one as an extraordinary hypothesis. The idea that the head of
an infant is already stocked with a range of articulate propositions may strike
one (and does strike me) as just wild. At any rate, if this were the
only form which nativism could take, then the burden of proof would surely fall
squarely on the nativist to provide some convincing argument for their view.
Locke would be quite right that there is a strong presumption against nativism,
unless and until we are shown otherwise.
In
fact, however, there is quite a different sense in which innate knowledge may
be latent from birth. For it may be innately determined that children develop
such knowledge at a certain stage in the course of their normal growth,
irrespective of details of education and experience. Compare, for example, the
possession of pubic hair. This is surely an innate feature of adult human
beings. But it is not present from birth, only making its appearance with the
onset of puberty. Similarly, then, in the case of knowledge: it may be that it
is not present at all at birth (there being no stored stock of propositions),
but that it is innately determined that such knowledge will make its appearance
at some particular stage in normal cognitive development.
Locke
himself considers ideas related to this one. For he argues against the
suggestion that truths may be innate in the sense that one has an innate capacity
for knowing them. He also argues against the thesis that innate knowledge may
make its appearance in the mind when the subject first attains the use of
reason. But his only response to the first suggestion, is that one cannot then
distinguish between truths which are learned and truths which are innate, if
'innate' just means that one has an innate capacity to know them. While this
may be true, if 'capacity' is understood broadly, it is not an objection to the
developmental thesis sketched above. For if the truths which make their
appearance subsequent upon experience could not have been learned from
that experience, then this will be sufficient reason to count them as innate,
as we shall see in the next section. And as for the suggestion that innate
knowledge may make its appearance with the onset of reason, Locke's response is
mostly to chip away at this as a proposed time at which innate knowledge
should appear, which in no way touches the general idea behind developmental
nativism.
Varieties of Innateness
We have noted that while one form of nativism
claims (somewhat implausibly) that knowledge is innate in the sense of being
present as such (or at least present in propositional form) from birth, it
might also be maintained that knowledge is innate in the sense of being
innately determined to make its appearance at some stage in childhood. This
latter thesis is surely the most plausible version of nativism. Indeed, there
seems no particular reason why we should presume its falsehood. For given that
much of the physical growth and development of human beings is innately
determined, why should the same not be true of our cognitive development also?
It is therefore not at all obvious that the burden of proof is on the defender
of this form of nativism to make out their case, rather than on Locke to show
that all knowledge is in fact acquired from experience. But we should now
notice that this second hypothesis, in turn, admits of two alternative
versions.
First,
a belief might be innate in the sense that it is acquired in any course of
experience sufficient for forming beliefs at all. To adopt this hypothesis is
to allow (as seems likely) that an infant sensorily deprived from birth would
never have any knowledge or beliefs, innate or otherwise. We would be allowing
that some initial experience is necessary for the mind to operate normally, and
for innate knowledge to make its appearance. But we would claim that it does
not matter what experiences the child has, provided that they are
sufficiently rich and varied for it to acquire at least some beliefs. Let us
call this 'The hypothesis of general triggering of innate knowledge' - 'general
triggering' because almost any experience will serve, the content of the
experiences needing to bear no relation whatever to the content of the innate
beliefs which make their appearance as a result.
The
second sense in which an acquired belief might be innate, would be if its
existence was inexplicable on any model of learning, its content being such
that it could not have been learned from the experiences which give rise to it.
To adopt this hypothesis would be to allow, as before, that a sensorily
deprived infant would never come to have any beliefs. But it would also be to
allow that quite specific types of experience may be necessary for a given
innate belief to make its appearance. For example, it might be claimed (as we
shall see in chapter 6) that our knowledge of grammatical structure is innate,
but that some experience of language is necessary to trigger this knowledge
into existence. Or it might be claimed (as we shall see in chapter 8) that our
knowledge of the rudiments of human psychology is innate, but that some
experience of other humans is necessary for it to make its appearance. (So
Tarzan brought up by apes in the jungle would never acquire either of these
sorts of belief, although his experience would be sufficiently rich for him to
have many other beliefs.) But still the knowledge in question could reasonably
be said to be innate, provided that it is impossible to see how it could have
been learned on the basis of the experiences in question - for example,
if no combination of memory, induction, and inference to the best explanation
could have generated that knowledge from such a meagre basis.
Let
us call this second version of developmental nativism 'The hypothesis of local
triggering of innate knowledge' - 'local' because specific (content-relevant)
types of experience are necessary for the knowledge to make its appearance; but
still 'triggering' because the content of the knowledge acquired is so related
to the content of the experiences which give rise to it, that the former could
not have been learned from the latter. Most of the arguments in support of
nativism which we shall consider in later chapters are in fact arguments for
local triggering. Notice that Locke himself provides no direct arguments
against either of these forms of developmental nativism.
Locke on Concept Acquisition
The arguments considered above from Book I of
the Essay are not the only ones which Locke uses against nativism.
Indeed, they do not even constitute his main argument. Rather, he thinks that
it will be sufficient to refute nativism if it can be shown that the hypothesis
of innate knowledge is an unnecessary one - that is to say: if he can
provide an alternative account of the genesis of all knowledge in experience.
This is his strategy throughout the remaining three Books of the Essay.
Now,
although I denied above that there is a general presumption against the truth
of nativism (at least in either of its more plausible developmental versions),
it does seem to me that Locke is on strong ground here. For suppose that both
Locke and the nativist could provide equally good explanations of the knowledge
we actually possess. In the case of the nativist (but not of Locke) there would
still be something left over that needed explaining - namely, how it is that
some of our knowledge comes to be innate. We already know that some knowledge
is derived from experience, and we know roughly how this takes place (through
perception). So the hypothesis that all knowledge comes from experience leaves
nothing further in need of explanation. In contrast, if some knowledge is
innate, it still remains to be explained how it comes to be so. Therefore,
other things being equal, Locke's hypothesis is the one to be prefered, since
it leaves less in need of explanation.
In
fact Locke does not focus very directly on explaining the acquisition of
knowledge from experience. Rather, most of his efforts are directed towards
showing how all our concepts (ideas) may be derived from experience. He here
assumes, I think, that no knowledge can be innate if no concepts are.1
So if he can show that the hypothesis of innate concepts is an unnecessary
one, he believes that he will thereby have shown that the hypothesis of innate
knowledge is also unnecessary.
The
idea that innate knowledge requires innate concepts is certainly a very
plausible one. For it is clearly the case that knowledge itself requires
concepts. Knowledge (at least in the sense which concerns us) is essentially
propositional - it is always knowledge that such-and-such is the case.
So you cannot possess such knowledge unless you also possess the concepts
involved in the proposition that such-and-such. You cannot know that
grass is green unless you possess the concepts grass and green.
But in fact, whether this dependence of knowledge upon concepts extends also to
the dependence of innate knowledge upon innate concepts, turns on
what exact concept of the innate is in question.
Clearly
there can be no innate knowledge in the sense of stored propositions unless
there are also innate concepts. For the constituent concepts of those
propositions will also have to be present in the mind from birth if the
propositions themselves are. Nor can there be general triggering of innate
knowledge by experience unless there is also general triggering of innate
concepts. For remember that the experiences which give rise to such knowledge
need bear no relation to it in content, and so would not be the sort of
experience from which one could derive (that is, learn) the concepts in
question either. Matters are quite different, however, when it comes to the
thesis of local triggering. For on this account, it may be that concepts are
learned from appropriate and relevant experience, but are then triggered into
items of knowledge which go far beyond the content of the experiences which
gave rise to the constituent concepts. It may thus be that while no concepts
are innate, some knowledge is. For it may be that while the data which gives
rise to our knowledge of some subject-matter is not sufficient to sustain the
view that we learned that knowledge, it may still be sufficient to
support the view that we learned the constituent concepts.
Thus
Locke's assumption that there can be no innate knowledge without innate
concepts is false. In which case his arguments against concept-nativism will
not necessarily undermine knowledge-nativism. Nevertheless, it is worth
considering his theory of concept-acquisition in its own right. For after all,
most nativists have in fact held, not only that some knowledge is innate, but
also that some concepts are. Moreover, the most plausible case of innate
knowledge, to be defended in chapter 8 (namely, knowledge of the general
principles governing our own and other people's psychology), will in fact be
such as to involve the claim that there are innate concepts also.
Locke
believes that we derive simple concepts from experience by abstraction
(complex concepts can then be formed from simple ones by definition). The idea
is that from a sequence of experiences we are to isolate the various features
they have in common. We are to do this by ignoring differences of time, context
and so on, and by noticing and isolating recurring aspects. Consider this
analogy. Suppose that you are taking part in one of those psychological
experiments where you are handed a sequence of cards on which geometrical
shapes of varying colours have been printed. Some are red triangles, some green
triangles; some are blue circles, some red circles; and so on. As you are
handed each card the experimenter says either 'This is a grink' or 'This is not
a grink'; your task being to acquire the concept grink. What you would
do, of course, would be to attempt to spot resemblances between those cards
which contain a grink, using those which do not to disconfirm your hypotheses.
This will be how Locke thinks of concept-acquisition in general. For what you
would in effect be doing in this experiment, is abstracting from the sequence
of your experiences the common feature of all grinks.
As
it stands, however, Locke's account of concept-acquisition appears viciously
circular. For noticing or attending to a common feature of various things
presupposes that you already possess the concept of the feature in question.
Thus in order to notice that Peter, Paul and Mary have something in common -
namely, that they are all freckled - you must already possess the concept of being
freckled. (This is not to say that you must already have a word for
'freckled'; but you must know in general how to distinguish people who are
freckled from people who are not.) Even more obviously, if one thinks of
concept-acquisition as being a matter of formulating and testing hypotheses
(for example, 'Is a grink any four-sided figure which is either red or
green?'), then some concepts must already be possessed in advance (namely, the
concepts which figure in the hypotheses).
While
Locke discusses abstraction in terms which suggest that the processes involved
will be conscious ones, it would be open to him to respond to the above
objection by denying this. He could say that his theory is really that prior to
acquiring any concepts there are processes which are somewhat like those
of noticing resemblances, ignoring differences of context and so on, only that
they are nonconscious ones. This saves the account from circularity. But notice
that it is now apparently to concede that there are innate concepts after all,
since nonconscious noticing of a resemblance presumably requires a nonconscious
concept of the feature in question. So it is doubtful whether Locke would find
this defence of his position satisfying. But then how else is he to defend it?
Whilst he remains wedded to the language of abstraction, it appears that he
must be committed to the mind's possession of conscious or nonconscious
concepts prior to the process of abstracting a concept from experience.
Complex Concepts
If we set aside the worry about circularity
outlined above, then Locke's theory can seem quite powerful. In particular, it
has the resources to rebut many of the arguments presented by rationalists in
favour of the thesis that there are innate concepts. For example, in the Phaedo
Plato argues that the concept straight must be innate because, first,
judgements of 'almost straight' presuppose prior grasp of the concept straight,
and secondly, because no object in the world of our experience can be better
than almost straight. Locke can reply by denying the implicit assumption that straight
is a simple idea, which would have to be learned directly from experience if it
is learned at all. Rather, he can say that what we derive from experience is
the comparative concept straighter than, by observing pairs of unequally
straight things. We can then introduce the concept straight by
definition, as a thing straighter than anything else could be.
Locke
can reply similarly to Descartes' argument in his third Meditation, that
our concepts of God's perfections must be innate, since they plainly could not
have been acquired on the basis of experience. Locke can maintain that what we
acquire from experience are the various comparative concepts better than,
more powerful than, more knowledgeable than, and so on. The idea
of God may then be introduced by definition, as the one and only person who is
better, more powerful, and more knowledgeable than anything else could possibly
be.
However,
Locke's account of concept-acquisition does face a number of further
difficulties. The most notorious is that there are many concepts which cannot
be abstracted directly from experience, and yet which appear not to be
definable in terms which can be so abstracted either. Consider, for example,
the concept of causation, which was treated at length by Hume.2 All
that is immediately observable in a case of A causing B is that the one
precedes the other. Hume suggests that the remainder of our concept is made up
from observing regular concurrences of such events. Then to say that A caused B
will be to say that it preceded it, and that all events of the same type as A
precede events of the same type as B. Yet clearly this falls short of our
intuitive concept of a cause, which includes the idea that causes somehow
necessitate their effects. Hume has to conclude that this idea is an illusion,
brought about by our own habits of mind in expecting an event of type B when we
see one of type A. Since our psychology is such that we cannot avoid expecting
B whenever we see A occur, Hume suggests that we mistakenly assume that it is B
itself which is unavoidable, given that A has occurred. He claims that what we
do is to project a feeling of psychological necessity on to the world.
There
are many reasons for rejecting Hume's account of the matter. One is that it
tacitly assumes that we do have a concept of causal necessitation, if only as
holding between psychological events. For what, otherwise, is the feeling of
necessity a feeling of? Another point is that one may come to believe in
a causal relationship between events after observing just a single instance,
when there has been no opportunity for a habit of expectation to be formed. For
example, I may see someone fall down stairs and come to believe that this
caused their broken leg, although this is the first occasion on which I have
observed anything of the sort to occur. Another argument is that we may wonder
whether A caused B, where this is clearly more than a matter of wondering
whether all events of type A precede events of type B. Yet in such cases we are
obviously not wondering whether our minds are necessitated to expect B given an
observation of A.
In
fact what is really involved in our idea of causation are, at least,
counterfactual and subjunctive conditionals, as we have already noted in
chapter 3. To say that A caused B is to imply that if A had not
happened, then B would not have.3 It is also to imply that if
in other sufficiently similar circumstances an event of type A were to
happen, then an event of type B would happen also. Yet it is impossible
to see how the concepts of such conditionals may either be abstracted from
experience, or defined purely in terms which may be so abstracted.
Indeed,
it is arguable that there is more to the concept of cause even than this. For
example, David Armstrong maintains that causation is best understood as a
relation of necessitation between immanent universals.4 This
relation is held to imply, and hence explain, the truth of the counterfactual
and subjunctive conditionals mentioned above, rather than being constituted by
them. Then it is because A is made up of properties which necessitate
the properties making up B, that it is true that if A had not happened B would
not have, and also true that if an event similar to A were to happen, so would
an event similar to B. Moreover, Armstrong argues that the notion of causal
necessitation has to be taken as primitive (that is, as indefinable). He also
concedes that it cannot be acquired from experience, without I think noticing
that he is therefore committed - very plausibly, in my view - to the claim that
the concept of cause is innate.
Other
concepts besides causation have led to problems for classical empiricists. Thus
both Berkeley and Hume drew the conclusion that our concept of mind-independent
continuously-existing physical objects is illusory, because they were (rightly)
unable to see how such a concept could be derived from experience, or defined
in terms of concepts which can be so derived. Since one cannot have experience
of an unexperienced object, it is hard to see how one could derive the concept
of such an object from experience. But then neither can that concept be defined
in other terms derivable from experience. The closest we could get would be to
say that an unexperienced object is the continuously existing cause of
our episodic experiences. But this is plainly too broad (quite apart from the
problem of how we are supposed to have acquired the concept of cause). It
cannot distinguish between the chair, as cause of my experience of it, and
Descartes' all-powerful demon.
It
is worth remarking here just how powerfully these empiricists must have been
convinced of the thesis that there are no innate concepts. For rather than give
up this thesis, they were prepared to deny that it is possible for us to
conceive of a mind-independent physical reality. But in the absence of any
convincing argument in its support, the proper conclusion to draw is surely
that it was their anti-nativism itself which is false.
Simple Concepts
In fact problems arise for empiricists even
in connection with the very simplest concepts, such as those of colour. For it
is false that all instances of a given colour share some common feature. In
which case we cannot acquire the concept of that colour by abstracting the
common feature of our experience. Thus consider the concept red. Do all
shades of red have something in common? If so what? It is surely false that
individual shades of red consist, as it were, of two distinguishable elements:
a general redness together with a particular shade. Rather, redness consists in
a continuous range of shades, each of which is only just distinguishable
from its neighbours. Acquiring the concept red is a matter of learning the
extent of the range.
Nor
will it help to say, as Berkeley does,5 that the concept of red is
not an idea of a common feature abstracted from differing red things, but is
rather an idea of a particular shade of red which is then used as a
representative of the whole range. For there is nothing in the particular shade
itself which can give you the extent of the range. Nor can this be learned from
experience. There is nothing in experience which can tell you where in
the spectrum red begins and ends. It would seem that the boundaries between the
various colours must somehow be specified innately, unless they can be
explained as taught social constructs of some kind.
This
last remark suggests an alternative strategy which is available to empiricists
for explaining our possession of concepts, and it is worth considering why they
have not, in general, been inclined to pursue it. The strategy would be to
appeal, not to abstraction, but to some sort of linguistic training. Why should
empiricists not say, consistently with their anti-nativism, that we are taught
to classify things in the way that we do? On this view, possession of concepts
would still arise out of experience by a process of learning. But the
experience in question would not be (or not primarily) of the things to which
the concepts apply, so much as of the norms which are prevalent in the person's
language community. A child's first fumbling use of words would gradually be
refined and perfected through a process of reward and correction. It would be,
for example, by mistakenly describing an unripe tomato as 'red' and being put
right by its parents, that a child would acquire its grasp of the boundaries
between the colours.
However,
the obvious question arising for such an account would be this: from where did
our teachers, in their turn, acquire their concepts? The answer, in terms of
the theory, is equally obvious: from their teachers. But now we have a
problem. Plainly the sequence of past teachers cannot be infinite, since the
human race has not always been in existence. So it appears that there must have
been some person, or group of people, who were the first to use simple
concepts, without having been taught to do so. But then we shall be landed back
with some version of abstractionism again, if we are to avoid commitment to
nativism. For those first users of concepts will somehow have to have acquired
their concepts directly on the basis of their experience. Certainly the problem
of concept-acquisition cannot be solved merely by pushing it back into the
past. It is for this reason (among others)6 that most empiricists
have not taken very seriously the idea that we acquire concepts through
linguistic training.
However,
we should beware of the suggestion that there must have been a first
concept-user, if present concept-users get their concepts from others. For
compare the following. What makes someone a member of the human species? One
obvious answer is: being born of human parents. This looks equally vulnerable
to the charge of merely putting a problem off, on the grounds that there must
have been at least two first humans who were not human by virtue of
having human parents. But in fact, as we now know, creatures that were
recognisably human evolved gradually, in small steps, from creatures which were
not. So it is possible that something similar may hold in the case of
concept-acquisition as well. It may be that what was recognisably a use of
concepts evolved gradually, from the use of grunts and growls which were
plainly non-conceptual. In which case an empiricist could explain
concept-acquisition in terms of linguistic training, without having to be
committed to some form of abstractionism in explaining how the first concepts
were acquired. But this is, so far, merely a promise. It remains for an
empiricist to show how concepts could arise gradually out of something
non-conceptual. We shall return to the issue in chapter 7. For the moment, it
is enough to have noted the weaknesses in the classical empiricist accounts of
concept-acquisition.
Why be Anti-Nativist?
While the empiricist case against platonism
is powerful, as we saw in chapter 3, its case against nativism is very weak by
comparison. Not only are the direct arguments against nativism unsound, but the
attempt to explain how all concepts may arise out of experience itself faces
severe difficulties. This is not to say, of course, that nativism is then shown
to be true. It is simply that the case against it is unproven. We may then
remain puzzled as to why empiricists such as Locke and Hume should have been so
convinced, nevertheless, that nativism must be false.
It
might be replied that there is no special problem about this: they were simply
misled by bad arguments. But I find this response unsatisfying. For after all,
Locke and Hume were both of them extremely intelligent men. So it remains
possible, at least, that they may have had other, more powerful, reasons for
rejecting nativism. Perhaps these may have gone unmentioned as a result of some
sort of political expediency. For example, it may have been that their real
reasons would have placed them in direct opposition to the Church.
Thus,
one hypothesis might be that the early empiricists' rejection of nativism was
part of their more general Enlightenment belief in the perfectability of man,
and should be seen in contrast with the traditional Christian doctrine of
original sin. But this proposal is hardly very satisfactory either, since there
is no intrinsic connection between perfectability and anti-nativism.
Enlightenment thinkers could equally well have maintained that while we have
innately-given knowledge, and innate faculties which are structured in such a
way as to embody information about the world, our knowledge and attitudes
nevertheless admit of indefinite extension and improvement.
It
is true that if the mind were literally a 'blank slate', as early empiricists
seemed to maintain, then human nature would be almost unlimitedly malleable,
for good or ill. The only constraints would be those of capacity (there may be
limits to how much knowledge a human mind could contain, for example), and
those imposed by the properties of the mental medium itself (some sorts of
knowledge might be more difficult to acquire on the basis of general learning
principles, for example). So the denial of nativism, if correct, would provide
some sort of guarantee of human perfectability.
Endorsements
of nativism, in contrast, would admit of at least two possible versions,
implying either perfectability on the one hand, or inherent imperfection on the
other. But even given a prior commitment to perfectability, this would be a
very poor reason for rejecting nativism altogether. For it is just as plausible
that the explanation of perfectability might be an innately given but
indefinitely improvable nature. Moreover, the current proposal would require us
to attribute to empiricists a belief in human perfectability which is
apparently lacking in independent support, but which stands in need of it. For
they cannot simply take for granted the falsity of Christian versions of
nativism, unless they have some independent reason for rejecting nativism as
such.
A rather different sort of proposal would be that the early empiricists' reasons for rejecting nativism might have formed such a fundamental part of their outlook as never to have been consciously articulated. Certainly it is common enough in philosophy for thinkers to allow themselves to overlook the weaknesses in their explicit arguments for a thesis, precisely because they have already become convinced of the truth of that thesis on other, and less readily articulable, grounds. Charity requires us to hope that something of this sort may be true in connection with the classical empiricist rejection of nativism. I shall return to the issue in the next chapter, and again in chapter 9.