The cambridge platonists exemplify the fear that newtonian natural philosophy subverts the status of traditional moral and religious beliefs, Which are strongly supported by the innate idea doctrine since it justifies them independently of the senses and the material universe. Isaac barrow, Friend and teacher of newton, Also employs the doctrine approbatively to support his metaphysics as a science of basic principles that constitute the foundation of natural science. Locke's rejection of the doctrine is analyzed and it is suggested that (...) the platonist's treatment of the active role of the mind in sensation could have been developed in eighteenth century britain if locke's polemic had not been so successful. (shrink)

"Between Descartes and Berkeley: A Forgotten Chapter in the History of the British Early-Modern Philosophy" The aim of this paper is to suggest how the internal logic and dynamics of the development of Cartesian philosophy can be reconstructed by means of the historical-theoretical analysis of one of the most forgotten lines of reception of Cartesianism, leading through the philosophy of British thinkers minorum gentium: Arthur Collier, John Norris, Richard Burthogge etc. Such analysis of the particular stages of the evolution of (...) post-Cartesian thought – within one intellectual-cultural context, makes it possible to situate Berkeley’s system (considered as a culminating point of the development of post-Cartesian British idealism) in the stream of the widely understood Cartesian thought. At the same time the analysis provides sufficient data to draw some general conclusions regarding the logic of the development of Cartesian-inspired philosophical systems. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: What are Ideas? Formal vs Objective Reality Innate, Adventitious, and Fictitious Ideas Clarity and Distinctness.

Evidence, For the most part from books I and iv of locke's "essay concerning human understanding", Is presented to show that the issue about innate ideas as understood by locke was not primarily psychological but methodological. Locke's philosophic ire was directed against those who used the doctrine of innate ideas to advocate a close-Minded, As opposed to an open-Minded, Method of inquiry.

Though Descartes is traditionally associated with the moderately nativist doctrine that our ideas of God, of eternal truths, and of true and immutable natures are innate, on two occasions he explicitly argued that all of our ideas, even sensory ideas, are innate in the mind. One reason it is surprising to find Descartes endorsing universal innateness is that such a view seems to leave no role for bodies in the production of our ideas of them.

"Realitas formalis/realitas obiectiva. The Paradox of Descartes’ Representationism" The paper discusses some aspects of the highly original theory of representation, developed by Descartes in his ‘Meditations’, and based on the ontological isomorphism of ideas and their material correlates. In the course of the analysis it is shown that the Cartesian theory involves unavoidable problems with discrimination or correlation of the objects in question, which is connected with the problem of constitutiveness of their modes of existence. Consequently, the conclusion of the (...) paper is that representationism based on the isomorphistic theory of representation turns out to be self-contradictory. (shrink)

Our disagreements concern points of some importance. There is the question whether the soul in itself is blank like a writing tablet on which nothing has as yet been written – a tabula rasa – as Aristotle and the author of the Essay maintain, and whether everything which is inscribed there comes solely from the senses and experience; or whether the soul inherently contains the sources of various notions and doctrines which external objects merely rouse up on suitable occasions, as (...) I believe and as do Plato and even the Schoolmen, and those who understand in this sense the passage in Saint Paul where he says that God's law is written in our hearts. The Stoics call these sources Prolepses, that is fundamental assumptions or things taken for granted in advance. (shrink)