Although linguistic nativism has received the bulk of attention in contemporary innateness debates, moral nativism has perhaps an even deeper ancestry. If linguistic nativism is Cartesian, moral nativism is Platonic. Moral nativism has taken a backseat to linguistic nativism in contemporary discussions largely because Chomsky made a case for linguistic nativism characterized by unprecedented ri...

This paper takes a fresh look at the nativism-empiricism debate, presenting and defending a nativist perspective on the mind. Empiricism is often taken to be the default view both in philosophy and in cognitive science. This paper argues, on the contrary, that there should be no presumption in favor of empiricism (or nativism), but that the existing evidence suggests that nativism is the most p...

This paper lays out the components of a language acquisition model, the interconnections among the components, and the differing stances of nativism and empiricism about syntax. After demonstrating that parsimony cannot decide between the two stances, the paper analyzes nine examples of evidence that have been used to argue for or against nativism, concluding that most pieces of evidence are ei...

Demonstrations of cognitive competence in preschool children and infants played an important role in the waning influence of Piagetian theory and the rise of nativism. Arguments and data favoring modularity have further buttressed the casefor nativism. This article reviews evidence concerning early competence and modularity in the spatial and quantitative domains, as well as the role of experie...

Radical concept nativism is the thesis that virtually all lexical concepts are innate. Notoriously endorsed by Jerry Fodor, radical concept nativism has had few supporters. However, it has proven difficult to say exactly what's wrong with Fodor's argument. We show that previous responses are inadequate on a number of grounds. Chief among these is that they typically do not achieve sufficient di...

This article, through various ethnographic encounters, highlights the advantages and explores challenges of fieldwork for a female researcher studying what might be taken to her own community. Doing native anthropology in marginal borderland that has not been explored anthropologically before turns out an interesting experience. On one hand, identity being region carves ways field help overcome...

Abstract. Nativism does not only present a concept, but also an ideological framework as well political practice related to identity politics. In the article we firstly theoretical reflection of nativism and operationalise most important terms characteristics this phenomenon. Later, apply concept analysis conservative populist and/or nativist actors in Central European region. The shows how nat...

This article is a reply to the foregoing responses to our “Empirical assessment of stimulus poverty arguments” (Pullum and Scholz, this special volume, hereafter EASPA). We Þrst address certain philosophical themes that cut across all six responses.We correct the impression held by Lasnik andUriagereka (L&U) and Crain and Pietroski (C&P) that EASPA owes the reader an alternative theory of langu...

Neural constructivists have proclaimed, on the basis of arguments which it is suggested in the following are unconvincing, a view of the nervous system which has little place for innate knowledge relating to speciic domains. In this paper an alternative position is developed, which by instantiating innate knowledge in a exible manner provides a more credible alternative. It invokes dynamical sy...