innate ideas

ideas that are held to be present in the mind prior to any experience. Innate ideas are usually taken to be those ideas that are so intuitively obvious as to require no proof, such as the axioms of geometry or the “contradiction principle” (X is not non-X) in logic. For René Descartes, who is often cited as the originator of the concept, innate ideas referred not so much to particular ideas as to the capacities and processes of rationality that allow such ideas to be immediately intuited as true. The notion of innate ideas later came under attack from John Locke and other thinkers in the empiricist tradition (see empiricism). Compare derived ideas.

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Psychology term of the day

October 18th 2024

topographic model

the original division of the psyche into three regions or systems as proposed by Sigmund Freud in 1900. The divisions are (a) the unconscious (Ucs), made up of unconscious impulses clustering around specific drives or instincts, such as hunger, thirst, and sex, as well as any repressed childhood memories associated with them; (b) the conscious (Cs), which enables the individual to adapt to society, distinguish between inner and outer reality, delay gratification, and anticipate the future; and (c) the preconscious (Pcs), which stands between the conscious and unconscious and is made up of logical, realistic ideas intermingled with irrational images and fantasies. Also called descriptive approach; systematic approach; topographic hypothesis. Compare dynamic model; economic model. See also structural model.