Leibniz's Reinterpretation Of The Concept Of Talent And Its Argumentation

The essential aspect of modern philosophy is Epistemology.The primary task of epistemology is analysis and debating of its origin and development.Especially at the issue of its origin,different answers of this issue lead different answers of other issues of epistemology.Leibniz is the representative personage of Rationalism,while Locke is the representative personage of Empiricism.Both of them all have a systematically and deep study on the origin of epistemology,but the status disposition of their basic theories have essential differences.Depending on his positive response for Locke's critique,Leibniz raise the theory of potential innate ideas after his re-description and re-definition of the theory of innate ideas.This paper,mainly references Leibniz's New Essays on the Human Understanding and studies on his response for Locke's Critical theory about innate ideas,shows the Leibniz's innate ideas and its origin,base,content,gives us a enlighten point about epistemology and Leibniz's philosophy system.The introduction of this paper,briefly introduced Leibniz and how his book,New Essays on the Human Understanding,was written when he was arguing with Locke.All of Locke's major arguments against innate ideas are criticized at length by Leibniz,who defends an extreme view of innate cognition,according to which all thoughts and actions of the soul are innate.In addition,this part also briefly illustrates the research situation on this issue at home and abroad,and presents the innovative ideas of this paper.In order to present the development of Leibniz's theory about innate ideas,the thought origin of innate ideas will be presented at chapter 2.The theory derived from Plato's doctrine of recollection,developed by Descartes and his disciple Spinoza.Descartes conveys the idea that innate knowledge or ideas is something inborn such as one would say,that a certain disease might be 'innate'.And Spinoza gives a new meaning of this theory.All the research from his predecessor gives Leibniz's theory of innate ideas a theoretical basis.For studying his theory of innate ideas,we must study on Leibniz's monadology in epistemology,because the substances of innatism and ontology are combined tightly with each other.So in chapter 3,this paper will analysis the monadology.Specifically,in order to give readers a brief overview about Leibniz's innate ideas,this part describes the structure and content of monadism and explains why monadology is a basic theory of Leibniz's theory of innate ideas.And then,affirms that the theory of pre-established harmony plays an import role on the theory of innate ideas.In chapter 4,this paper illustrates Leibniz's theory of innate ideas by sorts out his critical response for Locke in the book New Essays on the Human Understanding.Leibniz refutes Locke's theory of tabula rasa,and think the soul is definitely not a blank board.Depending on this critical response,he develops Descartes theory of innate ideas,and creates the theory of potential innate ideas,and think there is a process to make it from implicit to explicit.Not only innate ideas,but also the theory of petites perception also combined tightly with epistemology.By using this theory,Leibniz,responds Locke's confutation,defends the theory of innate ideas,and solves the paradox between innateness and clarity.Chapter 5 turns to make a reflection on the theory of Leibniz's innate ideas.He defended and developed the theory when he was arguing with the advocators of empiricism.And also retrieved the positive aspect of empiricism to make his theory of innate ideas more dialectical,this is the reason why his theory full of glow.Besides,Leibniz's theory of innate idea also has imperfection,especially on the understanding of sensory experience which still have lots of problem to be further studied and solved.