Innateness and the Brain
Author: Quartz S.R.1
Source: Biology and Philosophy, Volume 18, Number 1, January 2003 , pp. 13-40(28)
Publisher: Springer
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Abstract:
The philosophical innateness debate has long relied on psychological evidence. For a century, however, a parallel debate has taken place within neuroscience. In this paper, I consider the implications of this neuroscience debate for the philosophical innateness debate. By combining the tools of theoretical neurobiology and learning theory, I introduce the ``problem of development'' that all adaptive systems must solve, and suggest how responses to this problem can demarcate a number of innateness proposals. From this perspective, I suggest that the majority of natural systems are in fact innate. Lastly, I consider the acquistion strategies implemented by the human brain and suggest that there is a rigorous way of characterizing these ``neural constructivist'' strategies as not being strongly innate. Alternatives to innateness are thus both rigorously definable and empirically supported.
Keywords: computational learning theory; empiricism; innatness; nativism; neural constructivism
Language: English
Document Type: Research article
Affiliations: 1: Division of Humanities & Social Sciences, and Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, U.S.A.
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