Tabula Rasa

Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa, means "blank slate" in Latin and originates from the Roman tabula orwax
tablet used for notes, which was blanked by heating the wax and then smoothing it, to
give a tabula rasa.
[citation needed]
. This euates to the !nglish term, "blank slate" "or more
literally, "scra#ed tablet"$ that refers to writing on a slate sheet in chalk. %oth may be
refreshed re#eatedly, by melting of the wax or by erasing the chalk.
The term also is used as the name of an e#istemological theory that individuals are born
without built&in mental content and that all of their knowledge comes
fromex#erience and #erce#tion. 'enerally, #ro#onents of the tabula rasa thesis favour
the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to as#ects of one(s
#ersonality, social and emotional behaviour, and intelligence.
History
)n *estern #hiloso#hy, traces of the conce#t that became called tabula rasa a##ear as
early as the writings of +ristotle. +ristotle writes of the unscribed tablet in what is
#robably the first textbook of #sychology in the *estern canon, his treatise ",-./ 0123"
"De Anima or On the Soul, %ook ))), cha#ter 4$. Regardless of some arguments by
the 5toics and 6eri#atetics, however, the notion of the mind as a blank slate went largely
unnoticed for more than 7,888 years.
)n the eleventh century, the theory of tabula rasa was develo#ed more clearly by the
6ersian #hiloso#her )bn 5ina "known as "+vicenna" in the *estern world$. 9e argued
that the "...human intellect at birth resembled a tabula rasa, a #ure #otentiality that is
actuali:ed through education and comes to know," and that knowledge is attained
through "...em#irical familiarity with ob;ects in this world from which one abstracts
universal conce#ts," which develo#s through a "...syllogistic method ofreasoning<
observations lead to #re#ositional statements, which when com#ounded lead to further
abstract conce#ts." 9e further argued that the intellect itself "...#ossesses levels of
develo#ment from the material intellect "al-aql al-hayulani$, that #otentiality can acuire
knowledge to the active intellect "al-aql al-fail$, the state of the human intellect at
con;unction with the #erfect source of knowledge."
[7]
)n the twelfth century, the +ndalusian&)slamic #hiloso#her and novelist, )bn Tufail, known
as "+bubacer" or "!bn To#hail" in the *est, demonstrated the theory of tabula rasa as
a thought ex#eriment through his +rabic #hiloso#hical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, in which
he de#icted the develo#ment of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an
adult, in com#lete isolation from society" on a desert island, through ex#erience alone.
The Latin translation of his #hiloso#hical novel, entitledPhilosophus Autodidactus,
#ublished by !dward 6ococke the =ounger in 7>?7, had an influence on @ohn Locke(s
formulation of tabula rasa in An ssay !oncernin" Human #nderstandin".
[A]
$emale $i"ure %Sibyl &ith Tabula 'asa( by Biego CelD:ue:, c 7>4E
)n the thirteenth century, 5t. Thomas +uinas brought
the +ristotelian and+vicennian notions to the forefront of Fhristian thought. These
notions shar#ly contrasted with the #reviously held 6latonic notions of the human mind
as an entity that #reexisted somewhere in the heavens, before being sent down to ;oin a
body here on !arth "see 6lato(s Phaedo and Apolo"y, as well as others$. 5t.
%onaventure"also thirteenth century$ was one of the fiercest intellectual o##onents of
+uinas, offering some of the strongest arguments toward the 6latonic idea of the mind.
The writings of +vicenna, )bn Tufail, and +uinas on the tabula rasa theory stood
un#rogressed and untested for several centuries.
[citation needed]
)n fact, the modern idea of
the theory is attributed mostly to @ohn Locke(s ex#ression of the idea in An ssay
!oncernin" Human #nderstandin" written in the seventeenth century. )n Locke(s
#hiloso#hy, tabula rasa was the theory that at birth the "human$ mind is a "blank slate"
without rules for #rocessing data, and that data is added and rules for #rocessing are
formed solely by one(s sensory ex#eriences. The notion is central to Lockean
em#iricism. +s understood by Locke, tabula rasa meant that the mind of the individual
was born blank, and it also em#hasi:ed the freedom of individuals to author their
own soul. )ndividuals are free to define the content of their characterGbut basic identity
as a member of the human s#ecies cannot be altered. This #resum#tion of a free, self&
authored mind combined with an immutable human nature leads to the Lockean doctrine
of "natural" rights. Locke(s idea of tabula rasa is freuently com#ared with Thomas
9obbes(s view#oint of human nature, in which humans are endowed with inherent
mental contentG#articularly with selfishness.
[citation needed]
Tabula rasa also features in 5igmund Hreud(s #sychoanalysis. Hreud de#icted
#ersonality traits as being formed by family dynamics "see Iedi#us com#lex, etc.$.
Hreud(s theories im#ly that humans lack free will, but also that genetic influences on
human #ersonality are minimal. )n Hreudian #sychoanalysis, one is largely determined
by one(s u#bringing.
[citation needed]
The eighteenth&century #hiloso#her @ean&@acues Rousseau used tabula rasa to
su##ort his argument that warfare is an advent of society and agriculture, rather than
something that occurs from the human state of nature. 5ince tabula rasastates that
humans are born with a "blank&slate", Rousseau uses this to suggest that humans must
learn warfare.
The tabula rasa conce#t became #o#ular in social sciences during the twentieth century.
!arly ideas of eugenics #osited that human intelligence correlated strongly with social
class, but these ideas were re;ected, and the idea that genes "or sim#ly "blood"$
determined a #erson(s character became regarded as racist. %y the 7J?8s, scientists
such as @ohn Koneyhad come to see gender identity as socially constructed, rather than
rooted in genetic

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