Descartes and Innate Ideas

Innate ideas are one of the basic principles of Descartes's epistemology. However he is concerned with this issue in different texts giving rise to confusion and different interpretations. This article clarifies the confusion and interprets his doctrine in a coherent and, in some aspects, new way. He understands “innate” in two different ways. The first section is devoted to some evidences to these two meanings. In the second section his view is compared with those of his contemporaries. The actual or potential existence of innate ideas, their epistemic functions and the relation between them and universals are discussed in the other sections. Finally, it is shown that this interpretation is coherent and consistent with Descartes's different texts.