Samuels, Richard - Is Innateness A Confused Concept?

05/30/2008

The Innate Mind Vol 3, ch 2 Oxford Press 2007 Carruthers, Laurence, Stich, eds.

This is an extended reply to an objection, leveled recently about the concept of innateness, that it is hopelessly confused, confounding, and that it should be jettisoned in the realm of cognitive science (Griffiths). Author replies that this argument is inconclusive and proposes conditions for innateness that author claims avoids these objections. First, the objection:

The challenge is to the concept of innate, what the author labels 'INNATE'. The challenge is that INNATE confounds many independent properties into one concept. These independent properties are 'empirically dissociable' (pg19), but the concept INNATE confounds these properties together, thereby confusing the concept itself. (pg19) The different 'i-properties' are, e.g., as follows: (pg18-9)

1. Having an adaptive evolutionary explanation
2. Being insensitive to external variation
3. Being present at birth/inborn
4. Being universal, either pancultural or monomorphic (same trait accross cultures)
5. Not being acquired by learning

Author doesn't deny that these i-properties, or at least many of them, are commonly associated with INNATE, that they are empirically dissociable, and that much discussion these days is confused. Author first distinguishes between a confused concept and word ambiguity (pg20). Word ambiguity is just people using a word in different contexts and referring to different things. Concept confusion is that disparate things are grouped together into one. (pg21) Further, author argues that the confusion found in INNATE must be constitutive of the concept, not simply that it's associated with this or that property. (pg21-2) Author suggests (but does not endorse) a possible response to Griffiths: INNATE is a natural kind that is the causal origin of many of the properties associated with it. It isn't necessary that all the properties come out in all cases-- we should just expect a 'cluster of symptoms' (pg23-4

Author gives his analysis of INNATE as a 'Psychological Primitive', something that:

a) is posited by some correct psychological theory
b) is given to no correct psychological explanation of it's acquisition (in principle, not just currently)
c) is acquired by the normal course of development of the organism in question
(pg25)

With this analysis, author discusses the virtues of this as the basis for the concept INNATE. (pg27-8)
1) It is wholly consistent with the 'Interactionist Thesis', roughly, that development comes from both nature and nurture, while some of the i-properties imply that they come just from nature
2) It makes clearer much of the discussion in cognitive science today
3) It gives cognitive science something useful to do with the concept INNATE

Author then reviews the various i-properties and how most of them, with the exception of the property of being unlearned, are neither necessary nor sufficient for innateness. However, many of them bear a positive evidentiary relation (raise the probability of something being innate) to innateness. (pg28-31)

The last section deals with why, in cognitive science today, debates on innateness seems to be so confused. Author blames ambiguity, fallacious argumentation, and incomplete science (failure of convergence). Another peril is folk-psychology, the 'sink-hole' that it is easy even for scientists to fall into. (pg34-5) Lastly, author discusses a problem with his analysis of INNATE. The problem is that different frameworks of learning/acquisition may show different behaviors/traits to be innate. This is because of the void-filling nature of the concept. Thus author argues that we must simultaneously pursue the two questions:
-What innate structures are there?- and -what is the best theory of cognition?-