130 Innateness and Ontology, Part I

130 Innateness and Ontology, Part I
have an apparently respectable argument that they must be learned
inductively: nothing else appears likely to account for the content relation
between the concept that’s acquired and the experience that mediates its
acquisition. But look, it can’t be that inductivism about the acquisition of
primitive concepts is both circular and mandatory.
Please note that, though this is an embarrassment for those of us who
are inclined towards atomism, it is also an embarrassment for those of
you who aren’t. For, whatever you may think about the size of the
primitive conceptual basis—and, in particular, about whether
DOORKNOB is in it—on any version of RTM some concepts are going
to have to be primitive. And, on the one hand, SA does seem to show that
primitive concepts can’t be acquired inductively. And, on the other hand,
whatever the primitive concepts are, their acquisition is pretty sure to
exhibit the familiar d/D relation between the content of the concept and
the content of the experience that occasions it. Of what concept does the
acquisition not?9
In fact, it’s the concepts that have traditionally been practically
everybody’s favourite candidates for being primitive that exhibit the
doorknob/DOORKNOB effect most clearly. Like RED, for example. To
be sure, philosophers of both the Cartesian and the Empiricist persuasion
have often stressed the arbitrariness of the relation between the content of
sensory concepts and the character of their causes. It’s bumping into
photons (or whatever) that causes RED; but RED and PHOTON couldn’t
be less alike in content. (According to Descartes, this shows that not even
sensory concepts can come from experience. According to Locke, it shows
that secondary qualities are mind-dependent.) Well, if the relation between
sensory concepts and their causes really is arbitrary, then there can be no
d/D problem about sensory concepts. In which case, if Empiricists are
right and only sensory concepts are primitive, everything turns out OK.
Sensory concepts don’t have to be learned inductively, so they can be
innate; just as the Standard Argument requires, and just as Empiricists
and Rationalists have both always supposed them to be. Empiricism would
be cheap at the price if it shows the way out of a foundational paradox
about RTM.
But, on second thought, no such luck. The thing to keep your eye on,
pace Locke and Descartes both, is that the relation between the content of
9 Well, maybe the acquisition of PROTON doesn’t; it’s plausible that PROTON is not
typically acquired from its instances. So, as far as this part of the discussion is concerned,
you are therefore free to take PROTON as a primitive concept if you want to. But I imagine
you don’t want to.
Perhaps, in any case, it goes without saying that the fact that the d/D effect is widespread
in concept acquisition is itself contingent and a posteriori.