The Innateness Hypothesis and Mathematical Concepts

The Innateness Hypothesis and Mathematical Concepts

In historical claims for nativism, mathematics is a paradigmatic example of innate knowledge. Claims by contemporary developmental psychologists of elementary mathematical skills in human infants are a legacy of this. However, the connection between these skills and more formal mathematical concepts and methods remains unclear. This paper assesses the current debates surrounding nativism and ma...

Universal grammar and the innateness hypothesis

A critical study of the arguments for and against the hypothesis that human beings are born with an innate universal grammar, with some brief discussions of alternative theories.

The theory theory as an alternative to the innateness hypothesis

Innateness and the Situated Mind

Many advocates of situated approaches to the study of cognition (e. Thelen and Smith, 1994) explicitly take exception to cognitive science's pronounced nativist turn. 1 Other proponents of situated models seek to mitigate strong nativist claims, by, for example, finding ways to acknowledge innate contributions to cognitive processing while at the same time downplaying those contributions (Wilso...

Mathematical Concepts and Definitions

I Definition and Mathematical Practice The basic observation structuring this survey is that mathematicians often set finding the “right” / “proper” / “correct” / “natural” definition as a research objective, and success finding “the proper” definition can be counted as a significant advance in knowledge. Remarks like these from a retrospective on twentieth century algebraic geometry are common: