Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects of one's personality, social and emotional behaviour, and intelligence. The term in Latin equates to the English "blank slate" (or more accurately, "erased slate") (which refers to writing on a slate sheet in chalk) but comes from the Roman tabula or wax tablet, used for notes, which was blanked by heating the wax and then smoothing it to give a tabula rasa.

History [link]

In Western philosophy, traces of the idea that came to be called the tabula rasa appear as early as the writings of Aristotle. Aristotle writes of the unscribed tablet in what is probably the first textbook of psychology in the Western canon, his treatise "Περί Ψυχῆς" (De Anima or On the Soul, Book III, chapter 4). However, besides some arguments by the Stoics and Peripatetics, the notion of the mind as a blank slate went largely unnoticed for more than 1,000 years.

In the 11th century, the theory of tabula rasa was developed more clearly by the Persian philosopher, Ibn Sina (known as "Avicenna" in the Western world). He argued that the "human intellect at birth is rather like a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education and comes to know" and that knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" which is developed through a "syllogistic method of reasoning; observations lead to prepositional statements, which when compounded lead to further abstract concepts." He further argued that the intellect itself "possesses levels of development from the material intellect (al-‘aql al-hayulani), that potentiality can acquire knowledge to the active intellect (al-‘aql al-fa‘il), the state of the human intellect at conjunction with the perfect source of knowledge."^[1]

In the 12th century, the Andalusian-Islamic philosopher and novelist Ibn Tufail (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebn Tophail" in the West) demonstrated the theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment through his Arabic philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a desert island, through experience alone. The Latin translation of his philosophical novel, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus, published by Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671, had an influence on John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.^[2]

In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas brought the Aristotelian and Avicennian notions to the forefront of Christian thought. These notions sharply contrasted with the previously held Platonic notions of the human mind as an entity that preexisted somewhere in the heavens, before being sent down to join a body here on Earth (see Plato's Phaedo and Apology, as well as others). St. Bonaventure (also 13th century) was one of Aquinas' fiercest intellectual opponents, offering some of the strongest arguments towards the Platonic idea of the mind.

Female Figure (Sibyl with Tabula Rasa) by Diego Velázquez, c 1648

The writings of Avicenna, Ibn Tufail and Aquinas on the tabula rasa theory stood unprogressed for several centuries. In fact, our modern idea of the theory is mostly attributed to John Locke's expression of the idea in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in the 17th century. In Locke's philosophy, tabula rasa was the theory that the (human) mind is at birth a "blank slate" without rules for processing data, and that data is added and rules for processing are formed solely by one's sensory experiences. The notion is central to Lockean empiricism. As understood by Locke, tabula rasa meant that the mind of the individual was born "blank", and it also emphasized the individual's freedom to author his or her own soul. Each individual was free to define the content of his or her character - but his or her basic identity as a member of the human species cannot be so altered. It is from this presumption of a free, self-authored mind combined with an immutable human nature that the Lockean doctrine of "natural" rights derives. Locke's idea of tabula rasa is frequently compared with Thomas Hobbes's viewpoint of human nature, in which humans are endowed with inherent mental content – particular with selfishness.^{[citation needed]}

Tabula rasa is also featured in Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud depicted personality traits as being formed by family dynamics (see Oedipus complex, etc.). Freud's theories imply that humans lack free will, but also that genetic influences on human personality are minimal. In psychoanalysis, one is largely determined by one's upbringing.^{[citation needed]}

Tabula rasa is used by 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacque Rousseau in order to support his argument that warfare is an advent of society and agriculture, rather than something that occurs from the human state of nature. Since tabula rasa states that humans are born with a "blank-slate" Rousseau uses this to suggest that humans must learn warfare.

The tabula rasa concept became popular in social sciences in the 20th century. Eugenics (mainstream in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) came to be seen not as a sound policy but as a crime.^{[importance?]} The idea that genes (or simply "blood") determined character took on racist overtones. By the 1970s, some scientists had come to see gender identity as socially constructed rather than rooted in genetics (see John Money), a concept still current (see Anne Fausto-Sterling), although strongly contested. This swing of the pendulum accompanied suspicion of innate differences in general (see racism) and a propensity to "manage" society, where the real power must be if people are born blank.^{[original research?]}

Literature [link]

William Golding's novel the Lord of the Flies is a narrative unfolding of the human mind as more in tune with the views of Kant: full of innate cognitive and moral devices. Golding wrote the book in hope of convincing his readers that humans are born with an innate evil, and it is the job of humans to contain that evil.^{[citation needed]} At least two of his protagonists had the capacity to resist the call to evil. Whether this represented a residual of socialisation, and they would have eventually turned, or if they contained a biological factor of amity is unresolved.

Science [link]

Biogeography [link]

In biogeography, particularly phytogeography, the tabula rasa hypothesis about the origin of a biota in formerly glaciated areas refers to the idea that all species have immigrated into completely denuded land after the retreat of glaciers. It may also refer to the area around the Arctic caps in which glacial melting has exposed the area to flood wiping everything out.

Computer science [link]

In computer science, tabula rasa refers to the development of autonomous agents which are provided with a mechanism to reason and plan toward their goal, but no "built-in" knowledge-base of their environment. They are thus truly a "blank slate".

In reality autonomous agents are provided with an initial data-set or knowledge-base, but this should not be immutable or it will hamper autonomy and heuristic ability.^{[citation needed]} Even if the data-set is empty, it can usually be argued that there is an in-built bias in the reasoning and planning mechanisms.^{[citation needed]} Either intentionally or unintentionally placed there by the human designer, it thus negates the true spirit of tabula rasa.^[3]

Psychology and neurobiology [link]

As in Philosophy, there has been an enduring claim that in psychology and neurobiology that the brain is tabula rasa, at least with respect to its behavioural repertoire. Thus several psychologists such as Howe have argued against the existence of innate talent,^[4] while in neuroscience there have been debates that the brain functions with Mass action, rather than by a series of interacting mechanisms – for instance by Karl Lashley and others.

Scientists recognize that the entire cerebral cortex is indeed preprogrammed and organized in order to process sensory input, motor control, emotions, and natural responses.^[5] These programmed mechanisms in the brain then act to learn and refine the ability of the organism.^[6][7] For example, Steven Pinker argues that while the brain is "programmed" to pick up spoken language easily, it is not programmed to learn to read and write, and a human generally will not spontaneously learn to do so.^[8]

Important evidence against the tabula rasa model of the mind comes from Behavioural genetics, especially twin and adoption studies. These indicate strong genetic influences on personal characteristics such as IQ, alcoholism, gender identity, and other traits.^[8] Critically, multivariate studies show that the distinct faculties of the mind such as memory and reason fractionate along genetic boundaries. Cultural universals such as emotion and the relative resilience of psychological adaptation to accidental biological changes (for instance the David Reimer case of gender reassignment following an accident) also support basic biological mechanisms in the mind.

Politics [link]

As with evolution, the notion of the human mind as "blank slate" is attractive (or repulsive) to some individuals, and therefore tends to correlate with political views. On the one hand, the theory of a "blank slate" is attractive to some since it implies that innate mental differences cannot exist. On the other hand, the theory also implies that there is no limit to the ways in which society can shape human psychology. The opposing view is that human nature is innate at birth and that differences arise from genetics. To conclude that the mind does or does not have component mechanisms based on such political or philosophical implications (rather than empirical evidence) would be a form of the Moralistic fallacy.

Architecture [link]

In discussions of architecture since the 1950s, the term tabula rasa has been used in arguments against what were criticized as insensitive design strategies employed by a monolithic Modern Movement, brought to the United States from Europe by émigrés like Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. Entirely separated from its Aristotelian or Lockean meaning, the tabula rasa in architecture signifies the utopian blank slate on which a new building is conceived, free of compromise or complication after the demolition of what previously stood on the site. Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin, which proposed the demolition of a large area of central Paris and the construction of a new city with vast open spaces and tall towers, provides a good example of what was associated with the term tabula rasa in the architectural discourse.

Notes [link]

References [link]

• Aristotle, On the Soul (De Anima), W. S. Hett (trans.), pp. 1–203 in Aristotle, Volume 8, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1936.
• Avicenna, De Anima (Fi’l-Nafs), F. Rahman (trans.), London, UK, 1954.
• Tufail, Ibn, The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan (Hayy ibn Yaqzan), Simon Ockley (trans.), pp. 1–195, Edm. Powell, London, UK, 1708.
• Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica, Fathers of the English Dominican Province (trans.), Daniel J. Sullivan (ed.), vols. 19–20 in Robert Maynard Hutchins (ed.), Great Books of the Western World, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Chicago, IL, 1952.
• Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Kenneth P. Winkler (ed.), pp. 33–36, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1996.
• Baird, Forrest E.; Walter Kaufmann (2008). From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-158591-6. 

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