  Kant is usually given short shrift in discussions of the history of the Nativism-Empiricism controversy. He is certainly not an Empiricist; he sees his philosophy as a response to the challenge of Humean Empiricism. Nevertheless, he is critical of Rationalist versions of the Innateness doctrine at every turn. In my view, Kant is a  Nativist.[9]  The reason for the anomalies is that he is much more than a Nativist, and assigns a very different role to what is innate in us than the role assigned by his Rationalist predecessors. 