Conclusion to Part I

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides a brief conclusion to Part IV of the book, highlighting some of the important themes in Chapters 2–6. Taken as a whole, Part IV comprehensively rethinks the rationalism-empiricism debate about the origins of psychological traits, presenting our account of what the debate is about and clarifying key terms and distinctions in the debate. It also distinguishes our account from a number of widely held competing accounts of the debate—especially the view that it’s about the relative contributions of nature (genes) and nurture (environment)—which we argue are unproductive intellectual dead ends. This lays the foundation for the remainder of the book, establishing a theoretical framework for us to advance our positive case for concept nativism (in Part II) and to defend our account against empiricist alternatives (Part III) and against Fodor’s radical concept nativism and his infamous argument that concept learning is impossible (Part IV).