Tabula Rasa

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Introduction

The term 'Tabula Rasa' was coined by John Locke in his attempt to describe the state of humans at birth or a priori (prior to experience). He was trying to express the idea that when we are born, we know nothing, and we rely on sense experience to write on the black slate of our minds information, and build up knowledge of the world over time as we develop.

One initial argument for this theory is a highly intuitive one - observing babies in the early stages of development one will notice it learns to recognise certain things/modes of behaviour/develop concepts of colour, smell etc. which it is not initially equipped with on first being born. From this observation, it does not appear to be a significant jump from to conclude that babies must learn everything of the world from scratch. However, the bold claim that ALL ideas and concepts must come from sense experience, and the necessary denial of the possibility of INNATE ideas is a major point of conflict for philosophers.

Due to the empirical/observational nature of the basis of the theory, Tabula Rasa theories of mind are generally associated with empiricist philosophers.

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