innateness
Quality from birth
Innateness is the quality of being inborn rather than learned or acquired.
The term appears most often in debates about human nature—whether traits like language ability, moral sense, or personality are products of innateness or environment: The innateness of linguistic capacity remains controversial among researchers.
Belonging by nature
- inherentExisting as essential part
- congenitalExisting from birth
- essentialFundamentally necessary
- fundamentalForming the base
constitutive · integral · hardwired · immutable · unalterable · indelible · predetermined · preordained
Passed through generations
- geneticRelating to heredity
- heredityGenetic trait transmission
- DNAHereditary code molecule
- chromosomesGene-bearing nuclear structures
alleles · genotype · phenotype · heritability · genomic · ancestry · lineage · bloodline
- empiricismKnowledge through observation
- rationalismReason as knowledge source
- PlatonicOf the Forms philosopher
- DescartesCogito ergo sum's author
Leibniz · Locke · modularity
Unproven inner sense
- insightDeep perceptive understanding
- perceptionMental interpretation of stimuli
- discernmentKeen perception and judgment
- sensitivityResponsiveness to stimuli
intuitive · preverbal · prerational · unlearned · spontaneous
Involuntary stimulus response
- survivalRemaining alive against odds
- maternalOf or like mothers
- nestingMaking a dwelling
- migrationMovement to new territory
territoriality · foraging · hunting · flocking · hibernation · courtship · imprinting · breeding
intrinsic
Belonging by nature
- inherentExisting as essential part
- congenitalExisting from birth
- essentialFundamentally necessary
fundamental · constitutive · integral · hardwired · immutable · unalterable · indelible · predetermined · preordained · birthright
hereditary
Passed through generations
chromosomes · alleles · genotype · phenotype · heritability · genomic · ancestry · lineage · bloodline · inheritance
Chomsky
- empiricismKnowledge through observation
- rationalismReason as knowledge source
- PlatonicOf the Forms philosopher
Descartes · Leibniz · Locke · modularity
hunch
Unproven inner sense
- insightDeep perceptive understanding
- perceptionMental interpretation of stimuli
- discernmentKeen perception and judgment
sensitivity · intuitive · preverbal · prerational · unlearned · spontaneous
reflex
Involuntary stimulus response
migration · territoriality · foraging · hunting · flocking · hibernation · courtship · imprinting · breeding · fight-or-flight
- Language Acquisitionfirst language, second language, bilingualism, interlanguage, universal grammar
- Chomsky linguisticsuniversal grammar, merge, move, minimalist program, Noam Chomsky
- hereditygenes, DNA, gene, chromosomes, genetics
innatenesslearnedness
Scholarly wisdom accumulated
acquisition · learned behavior · acquired traits · learning · learned response
innatenessnurture
Support growth and development
environmentalism · environmental influence · empiricism · behaviorism · social learning
natural, nature, native, nation, innate, inborn, nascent, renaissance, natives