Can Innateness Ascriptions Avoid Tautology?
This article deals with the question whether innateness ascriptions in cognitive science---for instance, the postulation of an innate language faculty---can avoid tautology. First I shall argue that innateness is very difficult to define. As a dispositional notion, innateness faces the ``problem of...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | deu |
Published: |
Éditions Kimé
2014-10-01
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Series: | Philosophia Scientiæ |
Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/philosophiascientiae/1013 |
Summary: | This article deals with the question whether innateness ascriptions in cognitive science---for instance, the postulation of an innate language faculty---can avoid tautology. First I shall argue that innateness is very difficult to define. As a dispositional notion, innateness faces the ``problem of tautology’’ first outlined by Locke. Innateness ascriptions, regardless of their belonging to a nativist or an empiricist framework (indeed even empiricists have to formulate some of them), always depend on a peculiar view of cognitive development. But this fact far from condemning innateness ascriptions as tautological claims, offers an external operatory criterion to legitimise them: innateness ascriptions are justified when they rely on a satisfactory developmental explanation. |
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ISSN: | 1281-2463 1775-4283 |