Which Thoughts Require Sensory Capacities?

Is it possible that something—say, an alien, an angel, or an artificial system—thinks without having or ever having had any sensory capacity? If so, what could such a thing think? An extreme nativist view on this issue is that it's possible to think every thought—alternatively, every thinkable thought—without having or having had any sensory capacity. An extreme empiricist view is that no thought is thinkable unless one has or has had some sensory capacity. In between the extremes lies a range of intermediate views. This article argues for the conditional claim that, if some thought is thinkable without having or having had any sensory capacity, then a very large range of thoughts is thinkable in this circumstance. Thus, the truth lies either at the empiricist extreme or at or near the nativist extreme.