In the
“Meditations on First Philosophy”, philosopher Descartes uses six meditations
to prove the existence of God. Descartes’ argument is based on the one thing he
knows without a doubt, that humans have the capacity to think and have ideas
and therefore exist. In class we spent a lot of time discussing and trying to
understand the third meditation. The part of class that interested me the most
was the difference between innate ideas and adventitious ideas. In fact one of
the biggest questions that came up was if we only have ideas because we are
taught them? I do believe that people have innate ideas. I believe that people
are born with the idea of the difference between right and wrong. I think that
another innate idea is the human will to survive. I think that everyone is born
with ideas that help him or her make the right decisions to keep them alive.
For example, a baby is not taught to eat or breathe, they do it because it is
human nature. However, I think that
ideas of objects and what we do with these objects is learned. A baby has the
innate idea of eating but they have an adventitious idea of how to eat and what
to eat.
The concept that
confuses me the most relating to innate and adventitious ideas is whether the
idea of God is innate. I am inclined to believe that I would not know
about God or religion if I had not been taught, or heard people talking about
Him throughout my life. On the other hand, I think that it might be human
nature and an innate idea to want to believe that there is a higher power that created the infinite universe even if there is no proof. The
adventitious idea is learning that this higher power is God and that faith can
be found in different religions. What continues to puzzle me is whether or not God is the innate idea, or if the innate idea is simply knowing that nothing appears out of nowhere, everything must come from something else.
You are not the only one. I'm also rather confused about the whole thing with innate and adventitious ideas. Descartes says all the ideas he has "some seem to be bon with me, others come from without, and the rest to be made by my self" 36 (38)[30] In this sense, he seems to say ideas are categorized into innate, adventitious and invented by the source of them.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as he expounds his meanings of each, he says adventitious ideas are like the idea of heat, which comes from a source of heat that is outside of us. Sensation in general can be counted as adventitious because Descartes cannot force it to happen: he can't force himself to feel hot when he is cold. However the fire, something outside of himself, can easily force him to feel hot. Invented ideas are the ones concern mythical creatures, which do not have a source in the world. Sometimes they pop up in dreams, which doesn’t seem can be controlled by Descartes’ will either. Innate ideas are those similar to knowledge about mathematics or geometrics. We all have to propensity to understand, and have an idea of the “astronomical considerations” about the sun. 38 (40) [31]
The most confusing thing here is he uses the term ideas inconsistently in multiple ways. In my understanding, he says adventitious ideas are the ones come from outside sources, there better be an outside source that exists, and is able to impart some “idea” of itself to Descartes. So ideas are not formed all within Descartes? Do rocks have ideas in them and can just give it to Descartes? I am guessing this adventitious idea is supposed to be “sensation evoked” and what some Aristotelian scholars of his time may have depended heavily upon. What it exactly means is just not so clear.
He doesn’t do any better at making it clear about the innate and invented ideas. Sometimes I suspect he is somewhat mocking the use of certain terms by not explaining. I’m probably wrong on this. One thing I do notice about innate idea is that Descartes does wish to prove the God’s existence to be as certain a truth as mathematical truth. This demands the idea/understanding of God to be similar to the mathematical ideas/understanding. Descartes did not have access to all the genetics and behavioral studies we have today to tell him some behaviors are innate. However I don’t think innate behaviors such as looking at an oval shape with human facial feature more often then at merely an oval shape. I’m sure Descartes does not mean innate behaviors when he uses the term “innate”. The best concise definition of this innate idea is just “come from within”.
Fantz, "Take a Long Look"
http://pd.scisdragons.net/ibpsych/files/2011/11/Fantz-origin-of-form-perception.pdf