Editing Rationalism (section)

===Innate concept thesis===
{{Blockquote|text=''"We have some of the concepts we employ in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature."''<ref name="The Innate Concept Thesis">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/#4 The Innate Concept Thesis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929143915/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/#4 |date=2018-09-29 }} First published August 19, 2004; substantive revision March 31, 2013 cited on May 20, 2013.</ref>}}

Similar to the Innate Knowledge thesis, the Innate Concept thesis suggests that some concepts are simply part of our rational nature. These concepts are [[A priori and a posteriori|''a priori'']] in nature and sense experience is irrelevant to determining the nature of these concepts (though, sense experience can help bring the concepts to our [[Consciousness|conscious mind]]).

In his book ''[[Meditations on First Philosophy]]'',<ref>{{cite book |url= https://archive.org/details/descartesmeditat00rend |url-access= registration |editor1-first= J. |editor1-last=Cottingham |year=1996 |orig-year= 1986 |edition= revised |publisher= Cambridge University Press |isbn= 978-0521558181 |title= Meditations on First Philosophy With Selections from the Objections and Replies }}{{snd}}The original ''Meditations'', translated, in its entirety.</ref> [[René Descartes]] postulates three classifications for our [[idea]]s when he says, "Among my ideas, some appear to be innate, some to be adventitious, and others to have been invented by me. My understanding of what a thing is, what truth is, and what thought is, seems to derive simply from my own nature. But my hearing a noise, as I do now, or seeing the sun, or feeling the fire, comes from things which are located outside me, or so I have hitherto judged. Lastly, [[Siren (mythology)|sirens]], [[hippogriff]]s and the like are my own invention."<ref>René Descartes AT VII 37–38; CSM II 26.</ref>

Adventitious ideas are those concepts that we gain through sense experiences, ideas such as the sensation of heat, because they originate from outside sources; transmitting their own likeness rather than something else and something you simply cannot [[Will (philosophy)|will]] away. Ideas invented by us, such as those found in [[mythology]], [[legend]]s and [[fairy tale]]s, are created by us from other ideas we possess. Lastly, innate ideas, such as our ideas of [[perfection]], are those ideas we have as a result of mental processes that are beyond what experience can directly or indirectly provide.

[[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]] defends the idea of innate concepts by suggesting the mind plays a role in determining the nature of concepts, to explain this, he likens the mind to a block of marble in the ''[[New Essays on Human Understanding]]'',

{{Blockquote|text=This is why I have taken as an illustration a block of veined marble, rather than a wholly uniform block or blank tablets, that is to say what is called ''[[tabula rasa]]'' in the language of the philosophers. For if the soul were like those blank tablets, truths would be in us in the same way as the figure of Hercules is in a block of marble, when the marble is completely indifferent whether it receives this or some other figure. But if there were veins in the stone which marked out the figure of Hercules rather than other figures, this stone would be more determined thereto, and Hercules would be as it were in some manner innate in it, although labour would be needed to uncover the veins, and to clear them by polishing, and by cutting away what prevents them from appearing. It is in this way that ideas and truths are innate in us, like natural inclinations and dispositions, natural habits or potentialities, and not like activities, although these potentialities are always accompanied by some activities which correspond to them, though they are often imperceptible."<ref>Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1704, ''New Essays on Human Understanding'', Preface, p. 153.</ref>}}

Some philosophers, such as [[John Locke]] (who is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] and an [[Empiricism|empiricist]]), argue that the Innate Knowledge thesis and the Innate Concept thesis are the same.<ref>Locke, ''Concerning Human Understanding'', Book I, Ch. III, Par. 20.</ref> Other philosophers, such as [[Peter Carruthers (philosopher)|Peter Carruthers]], argue that the two theses are distinct from one another. As with the other theses covered under the umbrella of rationalism, the more types and greater number of concepts a philosopher claims to be innate, the more controversial and radical their position; "the more a concept seems removed from experience and the mental operations we can perform on experience the more plausibly it may be claimed to be innate. Since we do not experience perfect triangles but do experience pains, our concept of the former is a more promising candidate for being innate than our concept of the latter.<ref name="The Innate Concept Thesis"/>