2013-02-02
15 分钟This is philosophy bytes with me, David.
Edmonds, and me, Nigel Warburton.
Philosophy Bytes is available at www.philosophybytes.com.
Philosophy Bytes is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
The 17th century french philosopher Rene Descartes, who is often referred to as the father of modern philosophy, was primarily concerned with questions around epistemology.
What can we know, and how can we know it?
There are some things Descartes believed that we can know independent of experience.
That is, we don't get knowledge of them through our experience of the world, through interacting with the world intuitively.
That sounds a bit odd.
But Colin McGinn believes Descartes position is very plausible, though for reasons Descartes himself didn't fully grasp.
Colin McGinn, welcome to philosophy bites.
I'm very glad to be here.
The topic we're going to focus on today is descartes and innate knowledge.
Perhaps we could begin by just saying what you mean by innate.
Innate knowledge is simply knowledge which isn't acquired, and more specifically, it's not acquired by experience.
Usually when people say that, they mean it's not acquired through sense experience.
So it doesn't derive from seeing things, hearing things in any way, from the environment.
It entirely comes from within the subject or the organism and not from outside the organism.
Could you give an example of that?
Well, it's controversial.