Agnati Luigi Francesco, Agnati Achille, Mora Francisco, Fuxe Kjell
Section of Physiology, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via Campi 287, 141100 Modena, Italy.
Brain Res Rev. 2007 Aug;55(1):68-77. doi: 10.1016/j.brainresrev.2007.03.008. Epub 2007 Apr 3.
Starting from the assumption that philosophers carry out "experiments" not on concrete objects, but on concepts and relationships between concepts, it could be postulated that the philosopher's way to proceed is not basically different from that followed by scientists. From this similarity of approaches it can be considered that some philosophical problems and theories have a high impact on how to address scientific investigations. One of these issues is certainly the philosophical debate over innate ideas, which is central to the conflict between rationalist and empiricist epistemologies. We started our reflections on the possible presence of innate ideas in the human brain from the observation that there exists strong experimental support for the view that not only complex behaviours (e.g., sexual courtship, parental care) but also aesthetic and ethic judgements can be, at least in part, genetically determined. On these grounds it is suggested that neurobiological findings can give important contributions to the philosophical debate on innatism by putting forward possible explanatory models and heuristic hypotheses.
从哲学家不是对具体对象而是对概念以及概念之间的关系进行“实验”这一假设出发，可以假定哲学家的研究方式与科学家遵循的方式在本质上并无不同。基于这种方法上的相似性，可以认为一些哲学问题和理论对如何进行科学研究有着重大影响。其中一个问题无疑是关于天赋观念的哲学辩论，这在理性主义和经验主义认识论的冲突中处于核心地位。我们从这样一个观察开始思考人类大脑中天赋观念的可能存在，即有强有力的实验支持这样一种观点，不仅复杂行为（如求偶、亲代抚育），而且审美和伦理判断至少在一定程度上可以由基因决定。基于这些理由，有人提出神经生物学的发现可以通过提出可能的解释模型和启发式假说来为关于天赋论的哲学辩论做出重要贡献。
