Marginalium

Misconceptions About the Innateness of Emotions and Ideas:

we assume that abstract ideas must be learned, but we are all too happy to presume innate emotions, for instance

If we believe that the mind is ethereal, distinct from the body, then ideas (notions such as ‘helping others is good’ or ‘objects are cohesive’) must be disembodied as well … [unlike] the innateness of emotions, sensations and motor plans. Each of these psychological states can be linked to a bodily organ

[this] conspiracy … [is] why we wrongly view affective psychiatric disorders as destiny, whereas cognitive disorders such as dyslexia seem only ‘in the mind’