Abstract: The scientific revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the “transformative” forces it brought about prompted an epistemological turn in philosophy, and the debate between theory and empiricism about the source and nature of knowledge became the philosophical issue of the age. Regarding intuition versus deduction, innate concepts versus innate knowledge, a prolonged discussion occurred around these concepts and various aspects of the problem. This paper, however, attempts to focus the debate on the point of cause and effect as a way to show those positions and arguments. Given that the point of contention is whether or not causation should be understood as a gift or a potential, we will examine contemporary research on children’s causal cognition as the basis for a “scientific” answer or solution to this centuries-old “debate”.

Key Words: Nativism; Causation; Causal Cognition

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https://jdn.ucas.ac.cn/public/uploads/files/67078b438d052.pdf