<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear Info-CHILDES,<div> I usually try to avoid making posting for other people, but Peter seems to be having trouble posting, so I am herewith transmitting his message.</div><div><br></div><div>-- Brian MacWhinney</div><div><br></div><div><font size="2"><font face="Consolas, Courier New, Courier"><span style="font-size: 10pt; ">Christina,<br> <br> Rationalism and Nativism are often confused, but they are completely different claims. If we start with Empiricism, this is the doctrine that knowledge arises through experience with the world. Nativism, is literally the doctrine that some knowledge is there to begin with when we are born. Rationalism, on the other hand, is the doctrine that knowledge is not acquired through experience, but through rational thought involving the powers of reasoning and logic.<br> <br> The issues are perhaps made clearer in the case of mathematical understanding. An empiricist might claim that mathematical knowledge arises from experience with quantities in real world and so the idea of sets and cardinalities emerges in some way from that interaction. A nativist might claim that the basic ideas of mathematics are part of the genetic endowment and might only need to be triggered by relevant interactions with individual objects and collections. A rationalist, on the other hand, points out that understanding number and mathematics, cannot be fully explained by experience with the world, especially in the case of concepts that cannot be experienced, such as infinity and irrational numbers. The rationalist points out that knowledge of such concepts can only be derived through rational deductive analysis, not simply through experience. Likewise, they would deny that concepts of infinity are genetically given as well.<br> <br> So, there is actually nothing in the rationalist doctrine that requires knowledge to be present at birth, only that humans be possessed with some sort of mechanism for reasoning. But, as Tom points out, this is assumed in all theories. Jerry Fodor makes the interesting point that in some senses the behaviorsists and learning theorists were much more rationalist than the nativists. This is because they were very concerned with the problem of induciton of knowledge and how one arrives at complex knowledge through the elements of sensation. On the other hand, a purely nativist position requires no reasoning about knowledge since it is just put there by brute force and is present at birth. There is nothing to reason about.<br> <br> Of course these are stark contrasts that often simplify the actual positions of theorists in the field. But the confusion between nativism and rationalism should be avoided at all costs if one is to make any headway in really understanding the distinctions. <br> <br> <br> Peter Gordon, Associate Professor<br> Biobehavioral Sciences Department<br> Teachers College, Columbia University<br> 525 W 120th St. Box 180<br> New York, NY 10027<br> <br> E-mail: <font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="x-msg://54/pgordon@tc.edu">pgordon@tc.edu</a><br> </u></font>Phone: 212 678-8162 (Office)<br> 212 678-8169 (Lab)<br> 212 678-8233 (Fax)<br> <br> Webpage: <font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328">http://www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328</a><br></u></font></span></font></font><font face="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><span style="font-size: 11pt; "><br> <br></span></font><font face="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><span style="font-size: 11pt; "><br></span></font></div><br>
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