Editing Rationalism (section)

===Innate knowledge thesis===
{{Blockquote|text=''"We have knowledge of some truths in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature."''<ref name="The Innate Knowledge Thesis">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/#3 The Innate Knowledge Thesis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929143915/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/#3 |date=2018-09-29 }} First published August 19, 2004; substantive revision March 31, 2013 cited on May 20, 2013.</ref>}}

The Innate Knowledge thesis is similar to the Intuition/Deduction thesis in the regard that both theses claim [[knowledge]] is gained [[A priori and a posteriori|''a priori'']]. The two theses go their separate ways when describing how that knowledge is gained. As the name, and the rationale, suggests, the Innate Knowledge thesis claims knowledge is simply part of our rational nature. Experiences can trigger a process that allows this knowledge to come into our consciousness, but the experiences do not provide us with the knowledge itself. The knowledge has been with us since the beginning and the experience simply brought into focus, in the same way a photographer can bring the background of a picture into focus by changing the aperture of the lens. The background was always there, just not in focus.

This thesis targets a problem with the nature of inquiry originally postulated by [[Plato]] in ''[[Meno]]''. Here, Plato asks about inquiry; how do we gain knowledge of a theorem in geometry? We inquire into the matter. Yet, knowledge by inquiry seems impossible.<ref>Meno, 80d–e.</ref> In other words, "If we already have the knowledge, there is no place for inquiry. If we lack the knowledge, we don't know what we are seeking and cannot recognize it when we find it. Either way we cannot gain knowledge of the theorem by inquiry. Yet, we do know some theorems."<ref name="The Innate Knowledge Thesis"/> The Innate Knowledge thesis offers a solution to this [[paradox]]. By claiming that knowledge is already with us, either [[Consciousness|consciously]] or [[Unconscious mind|unconsciously]], a rationalist claims we don't really learn things in the traditional usage of the word, but rather that we simply use words we know.