innate idea
in philosophy, an idea allegedly inborn in the human mind, as contrasted with those received or compiled from experience. The doctrine that at least certain ideas (e.g., those of God, infinity, substance) must be innate, because no satisfactory empirical origin of them could be conceived, flourished in the 17th century and found in Rene Descartes its most prominent exponent. The theory took many forms: some held that a newborn child has an explicit awareness of such ideas; others, more commonly, maintained that innate ideas have some implicit form, either as a tendency or as a dormant capacity for their formulation, which in either case would require favourable experiential conditions for their development
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| a chattering or flighty, light-headed person. |
| an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance. |
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