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Tabula Rasa

Also Known As Blank Slate

Tabula rasa, Latin for blank slate, is the idea that a mind is born empty of innate content and that all knowledge and personality arise from sensory experience and environment. Aristotle introduced an unscribed-tablet notion in De Anima and Avicenna developed it in the eleventh century, but John Locke popularized the modern version, using the term white paper in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, making it central to empiricism. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Disputed
Origin Year
350 BCE 1
Aristotle introduces the unscribed-tablet notion in De Anima, conventionally dated to the middle of the fourth century BCE; the doctrine's modern form is a seventeenth-century development from Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), already recorded in this entity's own description. -350 marks Aristotle's originating text rather than Locke's later popularization, since the description credits Aristotle with introducing the notion first.
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Source Tabula Rasa (Wikipedia)
Source Tabula Rasa (Wikipedia)

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Source Tabula Rasa (Wikipedia)
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1. Tabula Rasa (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Locke (17th century) section
    The modern idea of the theory is attributed mostly to John Locke's expression of the idea in Essay Concerning Human Understanding, particularly using the term "white paper" in Book II, Chap. I, 2.
  • Introduction
    Tabula rasa; Latin for "blank slate"
  • Ancient Greek philosophy section
    In Western philosophy, the concept of tabula rasa can be traced back to the writings of Aristotle who writes in his treatise De Anima
  • Associated With: Empiricism, Lead section
    This idea is the central view posited in the theory of knowledge known as empiricism.
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