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Innateness as Closed Process Invariance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ron Mallon  and
Jonathan M. Weinberg
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Abstract

Controversies over the innateness of cognitive structures play a persistent role in driving research in philosophy as well as cognitive science, but the appropriate way to understand the category of the innate remains in dispute. The invariantist approaches of Stich and Sober face counterexample cases of traits that, though developing invariantly across different environments, nonetheless are not held by nativism partisans to count as innate. Appeals to canalization (Ariew) or to psychological primitiveness (Samuels) fail to handle this liberalism problem. We suggest a novel approach to innateness: closed process invariantism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , July 2006 , pp. 323 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

We are grateful to Colin Allen, André Ariew, Fiona Cowie, Stephen Crowley, Stephen Downes, Seth Jones, David Landy, Dominic Murphy, Shaun Nichols, Anya Plutynksi, William Ramsey, Kelsey Rinella, Georg Theiner, and two anonymous referees for generous comments on earlier drafts. The order of the authors’ names is arbitrary. This article is thoroughly collaborative.

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