Philosophical nativism
The term nativism ( Latin nativus: innate, natural) describes, depending on the context, the innate nature of a certain ability or other characteristics, e.g. B. innate psychological qualities can be meant (see nativism (psychology) ) or an innate nature of terms can be meant. As a specific term, philosophical nativism describes a teaching that goes back to Hermann von Helmholtz . According to this, all psychological phenomena can be traced back to innate reflexes, especially spatial and facial sensations.
These views were particularly represented in the 19th century by the physiologists Johannes Peter Müller and Ewald Hering . The adaptation of the organisms to the environment cannot be explained with this. But in order to be able to interpret the adaptations that actually existed, one had to allow the organism the ability to change its reflexes on the basis of experience. Helmholtz. from which the term "nativism" originates contrasted nativism with its empiricism , which can be traced back to John Locke and William Molyneux ( 1656 - 1698 ) and which avoids one-sidedness, and emphasized above all the importance of experience for adaptation:
- "Explain the nativistic hypotheses about the knowledge of the visual field ...
- first, not, but only assume that the fact to be explained exists, while at the same time rejecting its possible tracing back to certain psychological processes which they themselves must refer to in other cases.
- Secondly , the assumption of all nativist theories that complete ideas of objects are produced by the organic mechanism appears much more daring and alarming than the assumption of the empirical theory that only the misunderstood material of sensations derives from external influences, but all ideas from them arise from the Laws of thought are formed.
- Third , the nativistic assumptions are unnecessary "
With this, Helmholtz wanted to pave the way for research and create a viable hypothesis. In dealing with the representatives of nativism, Helmholtz developed his theory of signs. Their exploitation to build a falsifying hieroglyphic theory (in Georgi Walentinowitsch Plechanow ) called the criticism z. B. Lenin 's. Thus Helmholtz's theory of signs could not be kept out of the conflict between nativism and empiricism. Although Helmholtz was initially alone with his position, his view prevailed.
It was part of his partial departure from Kantianism , especially from Kant's apriorism . The struggle between nativists and empiricists was an expression of the philosophical struggle between idealism and materialism in the natural sciences. At the end of the 19th century, the opposition between nativism and empiricism lost its meaning because the materialistic conception prevailed (which only agrees with Helmholtz's empiricism in its basic concerns).
Individual evidence
- ↑ in: Helmholtz: Philosophical lectures and essays. Berlin 1971