posting for Peter Gordon

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Info-CHILDES,
     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.

-- Brian MacWhinney

Christina,

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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.


  Peter Gordon, Associate Professor
  Biobehavioral Sciences Department
  Teachers College, Columbia University
  525 W 120th St. Box 180
  New York, NY 10027

  E-mail: pgordon at tc.edu
  Phone:  212 678-8162 (Office)
          212 678-8169 (Lab)
          212 678-8233 (Fax)

  Webpage: http://www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328




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