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Leibniz , G. W. Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays , edited and
translated by Daniel Garber and Roger Ariew. Indianapolis : Hackett ,
1991 .
___. New Essays on Human Understanding , edited and translated by Peter
Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University
Press , 1996 .
___. Philosophical Papers and Letters , edited and translated by L.E. Loemker,
2nd edn . Kluwer : Dordrecht , 1969 .
The importance of ideas, the cardinal building block in modern philosophy
’ s theory of knowledge, can hardly be exaggerated. Equally important
and vehement was the seventeenth - century debate over the status of certain
principal ideas and special truths as either innate or not. Innatists and their
opponents crisscross the dichotomy of rationalists/empiricists. A mental
item can be innate in the sense of not acquired from extra - mental sources
but also in the sense of discovered as stored in the mind since birth; obviously
these two are not necessarily equivalent defi nitions. Nativists have
standardly been distinguished between those who claim that the mind is
actually aware of innate ideas and the more sophisticated ones, so - called
dispositional innatists, such as Leibniz, who hold that the mind has the
disposition or tendency to excavate certain ideas or principles it employs
unconsciously or contains potentially.
Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy,
First Edition. Edited by Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone.
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
284 Byron Kaldis
Leibniz, even more than Descartes before him, redrafts the issue of
innateness by removing it from its ancient preoccupation with psychological
origins only and redirects its emphasis mainly on the question of what the
mind must be furnished with, seen that it, and not the senses, can access
with remarkable epistemic success the modal status of necessary and universal
truths.
Though not the only or the fi rst champion of innate ideas in particular
or of innate knowledge in general, Leibniz is the most intriguing and most
vociferous defender of nativism (or innatism), both on the basis of his deep
metaphysics as well as in terms of an argumentative strategy containing
syllogisms designed specifi cally at rebutting Locke ’ s well - known attack on
nativism and the latter ’ s attempt to reinstate the doctrine of the mind as a
tabula rasa . The former, the metaphysical theses, are primarily found in
Leibniz ’ Discourse on Metaphysics (1686) and other early metaphysical
writings, while the latter, the syllogisms, are found in his celebrated
Nouveaux essais [ NE ] in dialogue format (published posthumously in 1765
but composed around 1704 – 5), having Locke personally as their target and
imaginary interlocutor. Leibniz ’ overall rationalist position aims at establishing
that the validity of necessary truths in pure mathematics, metaphysics,
logic, and even ethics, natural theology, and natural jurisprudence,
cannot be proven in any other way but a priori or by means of reasoning
only; that is, by what he calls the “ natural light. ” In fact, the latter, innate
natural reason that distinguishes humans from beasts is equivalent to the
power of the understanding innate to us, or what comes to the same thing,
of the “ self. ” Hence, we have Leibniz ’ famed modifi cation of the classic
scholastic motto, “ nihil est in intellectu quod prius fuerit in sensu , ” into
“ There is nothing in the understanding which has not come from the senses,
except the understanding itself, or the one who understands ” ( Philosophical
Papers , 549; emphasis added). This rich sense of “ self ” structured as containing
fundamental notions, the so - called “ intellectual ideas, ” of being,
substance, unity, possibility, change, action, and so on, is deployed repeatedly
by Leibniz in order to yield the innateness of these notions, being, after
all, the ingredients of our self (hence “ we are innate to ourselves ” in this
sense, too). So the possession of certain privileged intellectual ideas together
with our epistemic access to the modal status of necessary truths, both
unavailable by means of sense perception or induction, license belief in their
innateness.
In his purely metaphysical mood where Leibniz goes as far as to maintain
that, strictly, all ideas must be innate, his principal aim is to safeguard the
immateriality of the mind and its cognitive autonomy or self - suffi ciency.
The mind, being a monad without any windows, cannot thereby receive
any ideas from the outside by means of the senses. Infl ux of any sort is
proscribed throughout Leibnizean metaphysics or physics, properly named
Leibniz’ Argument for Innate Ideas 285
“ dynamics ” ; in a strict metaphysical sense, no created substance has any
real infl uence upon any other. Although in the case of material things,
mechanistic explanations in terms of transmission of infl uence (causation)
may be acceptable since the things involved in such a causal contact are not
real substantial unities; metaphysically speaking, this cannot be admissible,
for genuine substances are real (i.e., self - enclosed) unities. At the same time,
metaphysical theses such as the one just presented or that all substance
whatsoever that is a genuine unity is essentially characterized by an inherent
primary force or entelechy constantly operating – that is, it is perpetually
acting or never without originating activity or “ endeavor ” (and therefore
never comes into existence by generation nor goes out of extinction completely)
– all such theses are constantly at the background or foreground in
Leibniz ’ argumentative tactics in the Nouveaux essais. It must therefore be
underlined that the earlier strictly metaphysical theses are never deactivated
in the later Nouveaux essais , even when Leibniz is advancing arguments
only in an epistemic or psychological vein.
Crucial to understanding Leibniz ’ nativism, avoiding making him sound
unpalatable, is the particular manner in which he conceives of “ thinking, ”
“ idea, ” and the unconscious in dispositional terms. For him, to learn something
does not preclude it from being innate: Leibniz resists as invalid the
entailment from “ something is learned ” to “ it is not innate. ” Following
Descartes but going one step further, Leibniz is prepared to bite the bullet
and answer charges against the triviality or emptiness of any explanation
that takes recourse to potentialities or dispositions. First, Leibniz never
admits scholastic “ bare faculties ” – that is, mere potentiality or possibility
– dismissing them as fi ctions. By contrast, active force or entelechy, inherent
in substance, contains in itself a certain effort, “ conatus, ” or “ endeavor, ”
striving toward actualization. In the particular case of the activity of the
mind, this generic thesis is translated into the specifi c one whereby there is
always a mental tendency to actualize the awareness of innate notions. In
other words, the mind is never idle in the sense of having a mere “ faculty ”

Leibniz , G. W. Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays , edited and

translated by Daniel Garber and Roger Ariew. Indianapolis : Hackett ,

1991 .

___. New Essays on Human Understanding , edited and translated by Peter

Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University

Press , 1996 .

___. Philosophical Papers and Letters , edited and translated by L.E. Loemker,

2nd edn . Kluwer : Dordrecht , 1969 .

The importance of ideas, the cardinal building block in modern philosophy

’ s theory of knowledge, can hardly be exaggerated. Equally important

and vehement was the seventeenth - century debate over the status of certain

principal ideas and special truths as either innate or not. Innatists and their

opponents crisscross the dichotomy of rationalists/empiricists. A mental

item can be innate in the sense of not acquired from extra - mental sources

but also in the sense of discovered as stored in the mind since birth; obviously

these two are not necessarily equivalent defi nitions. Nativists have

standardly been distinguished between those who claim that the mind is

actually aware of innate ideas and the more sophisticated ones, so - called

dispositional innatists, such as Leibniz, who hold that the mind has the

disposition or tendency to excavate certain ideas or principles it employs

unconsciously or contains potentially.

Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy,

First Edition. Edited by Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone.

284 Byron Kaldis

Leibniz, even more than Descartes before him, redrafts the issue of

innateness by removing it from its ancient preoccupation with psychological

origins only and redirects its emphasis mainly on the question of what the

mind must be furnished with, seen that it, and not the senses, can access

with remarkable epistemic success the modal status of necessary and universal

truths.

Though not the only or the fi rst champion of innate ideas in particular

or of innate knowledge in general, Leibniz is the most intriguing and most

vociferous defender of nativism (or innatism), both on the basis of his deep

metaphysics as well as in terms of an argumentative strategy containing

syllogisms designed specifi cally at rebutting Locke ’ s well - known attack on

nativism and the latter ’ s attempt to reinstate the doctrine of the mind as a

tabula rasa . The former, the metaphysical theses, are primarily found in

Leibniz ’ Discourse on Metaphysics (1686) and other early metaphysical

writings, while the latter, the syllogisms, are found in his celebrated

Nouveaux essais [ NE ] in dialogue format (published posthumously in 1765

but composed around 1704 – 5), having Locke personally as their target and

imaginary interlocutor. Leibniz ’ overall rationalist position aims at establishing

that the validity of necessary truths in pure mathematics, metaphysics,

logic, and even ethics, natural theology, and natural jurisprudence,

cannot be proven in any other way but a priori or by means of reasoning

only; that is, by what he calls the “ natural light. ” In fact, the latter, innate

natural reason that distinguishes humans from beasts is equivalent to the

power of the understanding innate to us, or what comes to the same thing,

of the “ self. ” Hence, we have Leibniz ’ famed modifi cation of the classic

scholastic motto, “ nihil est in intellectu quod prius fuerit in sensu , ” into

“ There is nothing in the understanding which has not come from the senses,

except the understanding itself, or the one who understands ” ( Philosophical

Papers , 549; emphasis added). This rich sense of “ self ” structured as containing

fundamental notions, the so - called “ intellectual ideas, ” of being,

substance, unity, possibility, change, action, and so on, is deployed repeatedly

by Leibniz in order to yield the innateness of these notions, being, after

all, the ingredients of our self (hence “ we are innate to ourselves ” in this

sense, too). So the possession of certain privileged intellectual ideas together

with our epistemic access to the modal status of necessary truths, both

unavailable by means of sense perception or induction, license belief in their

innateness.

In his purely metaphysical mood where Leibniz goes as far as to maintain

that, strictly, all ideas must be innate, his principal aim is to safeguard the

immateriality of the mind and its cognitive autonomy or self - suffi ciency.

The mind, being a monad without any windows, cannot thereby receive

any ideas from the outside by means of the senses. Infl ux of any sort is

proscribed throughout Leibnizean metaphysics or physics, properly named

Leibniz’ Argument for Innate Ideas 285

“ dynamics ” ; in a strict metaphysical sense, no created substance has any

real infl uence upon any other. Although in the case of material things,

mechanistic explanations in terms of transmission of infl uence (causation)

may be acceptable since the things involved in such a causal contact are not

real substantial unities; metaphysically speaking, this cannot be admissible,

for genuine substances are real (i.e., self - enclosed) unities. At the same time,

metaphysical theses such as the one just presented or that all substance

whatsoever that is a genuine unity is essentially characterized by an inherent

primary force or entelechy constantly operating – that is, it is perpetually

acting or never without originating activity or “ endeavor ” (and therefore

never comes into existence by generation nor goes out of extinction completely)

– all such theses are constantly at the background or foreground in

Leibniz ’ argumentative tactics in the Nouveaux essais. It must therefore be

underlined that the earlier strictly metaphysical theses are never deactivated

in the later Nouveaux essais , even when Leibniz is advancing arguments

only in an epistemic or psychological vein.

Crucial to understanding Leibniz ’ nativism, avoiding making him sound

unpalatable, is the particular manner in which he conceives of “ thinking, ”

“ idea, ” and the unconscious in dispositional terms. For him, to learn something

does not preclude it from being innate: Leibniz resists as invalid the

entailment from “ something is learned ” to “ it is not innate. ” Following

Descartes but going one step further, Leibniz is prepared to bite the bullet

and answer charges against the triviality or emptiness of any explanation

that takes recourse to potentialities or dispositions. First, Leibniz never

admits scholastic “ bare faculties ” – that is, mere potentiality or possibility

– dismissing them as fi ctions. By contrast, active force or entelechy, inherent

in substance, contains in itself a certain effort, “ conatus, ” or “ endeavor, ”

striving toward actualization. In the particular case of the activity of the

mind, this generic thesis is translated into the specifi c one whereby there is

always a mental tendency to actualize the awareness of innate notions. In

other words, the mind is never idle in the sense of having a mere “ faculty ”