LEIBNIZ'S ARGUMENTS FOR INNATISM BYRON KALDIS BA Honours (Kent) DPHIL (Oxford) byron.kaldis@berkeley.edu bkald@eap.gr The Texts G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, Ed. & Transl. L.E. Loemker, 2nd Edit., Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1969 (p. 207; pp. 303ff; p.549) G. W. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays, Ed. & Transl. D Garber & R. Ariew, Hackett, Indianapolis, 1991. (p. 1ff & pp 49ff) G. W. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, Ed. & Transl. P. Renant & J. Bennett, CUP, Cambridge, 1996, §§49-86 Introducing the Argument: Context, Importance, Description The importance of ideas, the cardinal building block in modern philosophy's theory of knowledge, can hardly be exaggerated. Equally important and vehement was the 17 th century debate over the status of certain principal ideas and special truths as either innate or not. Innatists and their opponents crisscross the dichotomy of rationalists/empiricists. A mental item can be innate in the sense of not acquired from extra-mental sources, but also in the sense of discovered as stored in the mind since birth, obviously these two being not necessarily equivalent definitions. Innatists have standardly been distinguished between those who claim that the mind is actually aware of innate ideas and more sophisticated ones, so-called dispositional innatists, like Leibniz, who hold that the mind has the disposition or tendency to excavate certain ideas or principles it employs unconsciously or contains potentially. Leibniz, even more than Descartes before him, redrafts the issue of innateness by removing it from its ancient preoccupation with psychological origins only, and redirecting its emphasis mainly on the question of what the mind must be furnished with, seen that it, and not the senses, can access with remarkable epistemic success the modal status of necessary and universal truths. Though not the only or the first champion of innate ideas in particular or of innate knowledge in general, Leibniz is the most intriguing and most vociferous defender of innatism both on the basis of his deep metaphysics as well as in terms of an argumentative strategy containing syllogisms designed specifically at rebutting Locke's well-known attack on innatism and the latter's attempt to reinstate the doctrine of the mind as a tabula rasa. The former, the metaphysical theses, are primarily found in Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics (1686) and other early metaphysical writings, while the latter, the syllogisms, in his celebrated Nouveaux essais [NE] (published posthumously in 1765 but composed around 1704-1705) having Locke personally as their target and imaginary interlocutor. Leibniz's overall rationalist position aims at establishing that the validity of necessary truths, in pure mathematics, metaphysics, logic, and even ethics, natural theology and natural jurisprudence, cannot be proven in any other way but a priori or by means of reasoning only, i.e. by what he calls the “natural light”. In fact the latter, innate natural reason, that distinguishes humans from beasts, is equivalent to the power of the understanding innate to us, or what comes to the same thing, of the 'self': hence Leibniz's famed modification of the classic scholastic motto nihil est in intellectu quod prius fuerit in sensu into “there is nothing in the understanding which has not come from the senses, except the understanding itself, or the one who understands (Letter to Queen Sophia 1702, Loemker, p.549 emphasis added). This rich sense of 'self' structured as containing fundamental notions, the so-called “intellectual ideas”, of being, substance, unity, possibility, change, action etc., is deployed repeatedly by Leibniz in order to yield the innateness of these notions, being after all the ingredients of our self (hence “we are innate to ourselves” in this sense, too). So the possession of certain privileged intellectual ideas together with our epistemic access to the modal status of necessary truths, both unavailable by means of sense perception or induction, license belief in their innateness. In his purely metaphysical mood where Leibniz goes as far as to maintain that, strictly, all ideas must be innate, his principal aim is to safeguard the immateriality of the mind and its cognitive autonomy or self-sufficiency. The mind, being a monad without any windows, cannot thereby receive any ideas from the outside by means of the senses. Influx of any sort is proscribed throughout Leibnizean metaphysics or physics, properly named 'dynamics': in strict metaphysical sense no created substance has any real influence upon any other. Although in the case of material things mechanistic explanations in terms of transmission of influence (causation) may be acceptable since the things involved in such a causal contact are not real substantial unities, metaphysically speaking this cannot be admissible, for genuine substances are real (i.e. self-enclosed) unities. At the same time metaphysical theses such as the one just presented or that all substance whatsoever that is a genuine unity is essentially characterized by an inherent primary force or entelechy constantly operating, i.e. it is perpetually acting or never without originating activity or “endeavor” (and therefore never comes into existence by generation nor goes out of extinction completely) all such theses are constantly at the background or foreground in Leibniz' s argumentative tactics in the NE. It must therefore be underlined that the earlier strictly metaphysical theses are never deactivated in the later NE even when Leibniz is advancing arguments only in an epistemic or psychological vein. Crucial to understanding Leibniz's innatism, avoiding making him sound unpalatable, is the particular manner in which he conceives of 'thinking', 'idea' and the unconscious in dispositional terms. For him, to learn something does not preclude it from being innate: Leibniz resists as invalid the entailment from “something is learned” to “it is not innate”. Following Descartes but going one step further, Leibniz is prepared to bite the bullet and answer charges against the triviality or emptiness of any explanation that takes recourse to potentialities or dispositions. First, Leibniz never admits scholastic 'bare faculties' i.e. mere potentiality or possibility, dismissing them as fictions: by contrast, active force or entelechy, inherent in substance, contains in itself a certain effort, 'conatus' or 'endeavor', striving towards actualization. In the particular case of the activity of the mind, this generic thesis is translated into the specific one whereby there is always a mental tendency to actualize the awareness of innate notions. In other words, the mind is never idle in the sense of having a mere 'faculty' or potentiality that could remain unactualized. It never fails to activate its tendency, that is, the dedicated effort to unearth, or be aware of, innate notions and truths contained in it Such a Leibnizian force ('endeavor”) is predetermined to never fail to produce some actual activity, given the right conditions: by dint of attention or sense-probing it acquires awareness of its otherwise unconscious innate mental contents. Secondly, and related to this, Leibniz never fails to emphasize well before the NE that by 'idea' he does not understand an actualized occurrence or act of thought but a disposition to think in a certain way: “an idea consists not in some act, but in the faculty of thinking, and we are said to have an idea of a thing even if we do not think of it, if only, on a given occasion, we can think of it.” (“What is an Idea?” 1678, Loemker p. 207). Given all this, thirdly, for Leibniz, thinking does not amount to a constantly conscious series of occurent mental acts with clarity and distinctness, since the soul being always active qua substance can be said to still be active even during 'confused' (i.e. less that fully clear) states, either as potentially striving towards such conscious attentive thinking episodes or as being most of the time at a steady-state attenuated potentiality only. But what safeguards such an attenuated state from being empty, thus threatening to undermine Leibniz's whole position, is that it contains one of his most innovative elements, what he famously called petites perceptions: innumerable minute imperceptible sensations each one of each escapes our awareness yet contributes to the aggregate impression we are aware of. The Leibnizean conception of the unconscious is used against Descartes' doctrine of constant or permanent thinking while at the same time avoiding on the other side Locke's doctrine that the mind can be, at periods, blank or inactive. That the petites perceptions turn out to be the capital pillar of Leibniz's defence of innateness in the NE becomes quickly apparent as he puts his invention to work in almost the whole range of his philosophy. In the Preface to NE Leibniz advances three arguments corresponding to the following theses (suitably reconstructed in an organized form): (1) only innate principles ground our knowledge with demonstrative certainty of the modal status of specific truths as necessary and universally valid; (2) in self-reflection we become aware of possessing certain intellectual ideas (see above) being (a) immediately related to, and (b) always present to, the understanding, although we do not normally pay constant attention to these, since our everyday distractions and needs prevent our being always aware of them; and (3) as in a block of marble its veins predetermine the shape it may take, similarly our soul contains in an unconscious state innate items which it has the predetermined potentiality, tendency or disposition to unearth, i.e. become aware of; in support of this the thesis of petites perceptions is employed. All these can be seen to be replies directed at the three prongs of Locke's attack on innatism: (1) together with (3) answer Locke's contention that necessary truths do not receive universal assent as they ought to if they were truly innate to all mankind; (2) together with (3) answer Locke's contention that our mind cannot possess something of which it is unaware; and (3) together with Leibniz's metaphysical theses about the nature of the mind (see above) answer Locke's contention that since the mind does not think all the time it is possible for the mind to be empty. In the first chapter of Book I, he adds a new aspect to potentiality, this time regarding not just ideas but our knowledge of truths and use of inferences: their enthymemic character. Contemporary Significance The significance of Leibniz's argumentation cannot be overstated given the importance of the notion of the unconscious – something he did not invent but formulated in a novel and plausible manner, his influence on subsequent developments in German idealism, and, perhaps more importantly, its unnoticed relevance to recent discussions in the philosophy of mind and evolutionary psychology regarding nativism and concept-innatism, or current research in neurophysiology. It is worth pointing out that current neurobiological findings regarding motor cognition corroborate his view of the unconscious petites perceptions as neural activity falling below a minimum level or duration required to emerge into awareness. Representative Quotation (1) [N]ecessary truths, such as we find in pure mathematics...must have principles whose proof does not depend on instances nor...on the testimony of the senses, even though without the senses it would never occur to us to think of them...[S]o the proof of them can only come from inner principles described as innate. It would indeed be wrong to think that we can easily read these eternal laws of reason in the soul, as the Praetor's edict can be read on his notice-board, without effort or inquiry; but it is enough that they can be discovered within us by dint of attention...[W]hat shows the existence of inner sources of necessary truths is also what distinguishes man from beast. (2) [I]deas which do not originate in sensation come from reflection. But reflection is nothing but attention to what is within us, and the senses do not give us what we carry with us already...[C]an it be denied that there is a great deal that is innate in our minds since we are innate to ourselves...and since we include Being, Unity, Substance...and hosts of other objects of our intellectual ideas?...(3) I have also used the analogy of the veined block of marble, as opposed to an entirely homogeneous block of marble, or to a blank tablet...[I]f there were veins in the block which marked out the shape of Hercules rather than other shapes, then the block would be more determined to that shape and Hercules would be innate to it...even though labour would be required to expose the veins and to polish them to clarity, removing everything that prevents them from being seen. This is how ideas and truths are innate in us – as inclinations, dispositions, tendencies, or natural potentialities and not as action; although these potentialities are always accompanied by certain actions, often insensible ones, which correspond to them.(5) [A]t every moment there is in us an infinity of perceptions unaccompanied by awareness or reflection; that is alterations in the soul itself, of which we are unaware because these impressions are either too minute and too numerous or else too unvarying...But when they are combined with others they do nevertheless have their effect and make themselves felt” (6) [A] special affinity which the human mind has with [necessary truths]... is what makes us call them innate. So it is not a bare faculty...a mere possibility of understanding those truths; it is rather a disposition...a preformation which determines our souls and brings it about that they are derivable from it. (7) [A] 'consideration of the nature of things' is nothing but the knowledge of the nature of our mind and of those innate ideas, and there is no need to look for them outside oneself . NE, Preface and Bk. Ch.i. THE THREE ARGUMENTS Proposition to be proven: The (human) Mind is not a Tabula Rasa ever. T1.1: “because it contains principles on which necessary truths rest, and these principles did not originate outside the mind” T1.2 : “because it contains ideas of reflection, i.e it is itself the source of inner knowledge” T1.1 P1 The Mind knows both truths of matter of fact and truths of reason P2 The Mind knows truths truths of reason (from P1 by Simplification) P3 The truths of reason are necessary, universally valid (true in all possible words) and absolutely certain C1 Therefore the Mind knows necessary and universal truths (from P2 and P3 by Substitution) P4 Necessity, universality and certainty can either be established by means of induction from external sensory data or they may originate from the mind itself. P5 Induction is inadequate in yielding necessity, universal validity and certainty. C2 Therefore necessity, universal validity and certainty of truths of reason can be original with the mind itself. (from C1, and P4&P5 with Disjunctive Syllogism) P6 If necessity and certainty are original with the mind, then they are contained within it. C3 Hence the mind contains these originally in itself (from P6, C2 and Modus Ponens) P7 If the mind contains originally an item of knowledge, then the mind is not empty ever. C4 Therefore the mind is not empty ever. (from C3 and P7 and Modus Ponens) T1.2 P1 The mind has Ideas by means of Reflection P2 Ideas of Reflection manifest the capacity of the mind to know itself. P3 The mind can know itself inwardly either by relying on the senses for assistance or it is itself endowed with this capacity. P4 The senses can deliver knowledge (ideas) regarding only the external world. C1 Hence the mind's capacity for reflecting on itself is an endowed capacity. (from P3 and P4 and Disjunctive Syllogism) P5 If the mind possesses an endowed capacity, then it contains it in itself without having it acquired. C2 The mind contains without acquiring the reflecting capacity (from C1, P5 and Modus Ponens) P6 If a mental item is contained in the mind without being acquired, then it is innate. C3 Hence the mind's reflecting capacity is innate (from C2 and P6 and Modus Ponens) P7 If the mind has an innate item, then it cannot be empty at its inception P10 If the mind contains something innately (from its inception) then it contains it continuously. C4 Therefore the mind is not empty ever (from P7 and P10 and Hypothetical Syllogism) T2 Proposition to be proven: “that the mind has the capacity of actively searching and finding innate truths within itself, not merely knowing them.” In other words: The capacity to know these truths is different from the capacity the understanding has of merely being capable of coming to know (receive) them. P1 Either a mental faculty is a bare faculty or it is a predetermined, dedicated, capacity to search for specific objects in te mind P2 An epistemic faculty is a 'bare faculty' iff it is merely an indeterminate disposition to receive truths (by definition) C1 Therefore a mental faculty is either an indeterminate disposition to receive truths or a predetermined, dedicated, capacity to search for specific truths in the mind (from P1 and P2 by Substitution) P3 The epistemic capacity of knowing necessary truths is a mental faculty C2 Therefore the epistemic capacity of knowing necessary truths is either a bare faculty or a predetermined dedicated capacity to search for specific such truths (from C1 and P3 by Substitution) P4 If the epistemic capacity of knowing necessary truths is a bare faculty of receiving, then it is not the source of such truths P5 T1.1. (above) has shown that the mind is the source of the validity (proof) of necessary truths C3 Therefore the epistemic capacity of knowing necessary truths is not a bare faculty (from P4 and P5 and Modus Tollens) C4 Therefore the epistemic capacity of knowing necessary truths is a predetermined dedicated capacity to search for specific objects (from P1 and C3 with Disjunctive Syllogism) ___________