In philosophy and psychology, an innate idea is a concept or item of knowledge which is said to be universal to all humanity—that is, something people are born with rather than something people have learned through experience.
The issue is controversial, and can be said to be an aspect of a long-running nature versus nurture debate, albeit one localized to the question of understanding human cognition.
Read more about this topic: Innatism
Famous quotes containing the words innate and/or idea:
“No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy, nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them.”
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)
“The idea of enemies is awful it makes one stop remembering eternity and the fear of death. That is what enemies are. Possessions are the same as enemies only less so, they too make one forget eternity and the fear of death.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)