Leibniz and Malebranche on Innate Ideas

Abstract

2 veryone knows that Locke attacked, and Leibniz defended, the doctrine of innate ideas. But it is much less well known that innate ideas were attacked by one seventeenth-century philosopher who is conventionally classified as a rationalist: in The Search After Truth, Malebranche explicitly rejects the doctrine which his predecessor, Descartes, had revived.' In view of his philosophical allegiances, Malebranche's stand is somewhat surprising. As a philosopher in the Platonic and Cartesian traditions, Malebranche might be expected to be found among the partisans rather than the enemies of innate ideas. But though Malebranche's opposition may surprise us, we may wonder how deep it goes. It is notoriously difficult to see what is at issue in seventeenth-century controversies over innate ideas; parties to the debate tend to resort to picturesque but unhelpful metaphors. Some philosophers may be inclined to suppose that Malebranche's opposition to the doctrine can be little more than verbal. Such skepticism, however, would be a mistake. Malebranche's case against innate ideas is in some ways more radical and important than Locke's, and there is reason to believe that Leibniz would have shared this estimate. When Leibniz champions the doctrine of innate ideas, he is in effect fighting a war on two fronts. On the one hand of course (at least in his later writings), he is attacking Locke's view that the mind at birth is a tabula rasa; on the other hand, he is combatting the theory of ideas espoused by Malebranche. The fact that Malebranche is a target can, I believe, throw new light on Leibniz's sometimes obscure defense of innate ideas; for many features of Leibniz's case fall into place once they are seen as part of a coherent strategy for answering Malebranche's objections. An analysis of Leibniz's strategy can also help to illuminate some of the deepest themes and tensions in his philosophy. We shall see, for example, that in order to defend the 'Platonic' doctrine of innate