Universal acceptance would not prove innateness, and non-universality disproves it.It is near a contradiction
Universal acceptance would not prove innateness, and non-universality disproves it.
It is near a contradiction to say that there are truths imprinted on the soul which it perceives or understands not’. Locke dismisses the reply that men assent to these truths when they come to the use of reason:
this means only that they can discover these truths by reasoning; it makes no sense to suggest that reasoning can uncover something already imprinted in the soul, but concealed. J.L. Mackie, Problems from Locke
Locke suggested that the doctrine of innate ideas lends itself to a certain authoritarianism and encourages laziness of thought, so that the foundations of knowledge are not likely to be examined.
James Gordon, John Locke, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards