What is innate?

What Does innate Mean

The term innate comes from the Latin innātus ( innasci , "to be born in" ) and refers to what is natural for a subject since he is born with himself .

Therefore, starting from this meaning of the term that we are dealing with, we could say that it could be established, in the same way, as a synonym for adjectives such as inherited or congenital.
For example: "The child suffers from an innate disease" , "Sometimes I think that evil is something innate of the human being" , "Poverty should never be innate . "
The nativism , moreover, is a principle of rationalist philosophy that emerges from the intention to find an explanation of the origin of the knowledge that it is different from the argument experiences.

This doctrine, therefore, explains that the following: if knowledge does not arise through the sensory activity of experience, it must originate from a different source. These rationalist thinkers thus hold that basic ideas (including belief in a God ) are innate.
When an organism is born, then, certain ideas are already part of its essence. From Plato to Gottfried Leibniz , through Baruch Spinoza and René Descartes , many great thinkers have held this view.
To all these names of important figures in the history of thought, the American linguist Noam Chomsky, author of countless documents on various aspects such as language or computation, should be added in an irremediable way, since the aforementioned innate is very present in a of his most illustrious works: The Theory of Transformational and Generative Grammar.
And this without forgetting either that it is impossible to talk about this type of doctrine without referring to the fact that other very important figures have also studied and analyzed about it, such as the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant or the defenders of constructivism such as the Austrian scientist Paul Watzlawick. or Heinz von Foerster.
It is known as the innate immune system , on the other hand, the set of mechanisms and cells that act as defense of an organism against possible infections. This means that the system is able to generically recognize pathogens and act accordingly.
The detection of substances that are not natural in the tissues, the activation of the functioning of the adaptive immune system and the transfer of immune cells to the infected areas are some of the functions of the innate immune system.

To all this we must add that it is common for the acquired concept to emerge when speaking of innate. And they are totally the opposite. Thus, as always happens with the black-white dichotomy, we must also speak of innate-acquired. A compound expression is this, created by the English psychologist Francis Galton, which is used to debate whether various aspects are the fruit of birth or whether their origin is social, family, learned.
Among the aspects that have been most debated regarding this innate or acquired dichotomy, we should refer to diseases, the behavior of human beings or various physical characteristics.

Go up