The Innate Mind Volume 3: Foundations and the Future

This is the third volume of a three-volume set on The Innate Mind. Theextent to which cognitive structures, processes, and contents are innate is oneof the central questions concerning the nature of the mind, with importantimplications for debates throughout the human sciences. By bringing togetherthe top nativist scholars in philosophy, psychology, and allied disciplinesthese columes provide a comphrensive assessment of nativist thought and adefinitive regerence point for future nativist inquiry. The Innate Mind: Volume3: Foundations and the Future, concerns a variety of foundational issues, aswell as questions about the direction of future nativist research. It addressessuch questions as: What is innateness? Is it a confused notion? What is atstake in debates between nativists and empiricists? What is the relationshipbetween genes and innateness? How do innate structures and learned informationinteract to produce adult forms of cognition, e.g. about number, and how doessuch learning take place? Waht innate abilities underlie the creative aspect oflanguage sue, and of creative cognition generally? What are the innatefoundations of human motivation, and of human moral cognition? In the course oftheir discussions, many of the contributors pose the question (whetherexplicitly or implicitly): Where next for nativist research? Together, these three volumes provide the most intensive and richlycross-disciplinary investigation of nativism ever undertaken. They point theway toward a synthesis of nativist work that promises to provide a powerfulpicture of our minds and their place in the natural order.