Tabula rasa
Concept · John Locke · Philosophy, stage 1: Learn the vocabulary
Tabula rasa, Latin for 'blank slate,' is the idea that the mind starts with no innate ideas or built-in content and is shaped entirely by experience. John Locke made the phrase central to modern philosophy in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, arguing against the rationalist claim that some knowledge is built into the mind from birth. On this view, everything the mind knows gets written onto it through sensation and reflection.
Why it matters
It is the founding claim of empiricism and the reason empiricists put so much weight on experience over reasoning alone.
Part of
Sources
- Rationalism vs. Empiricism Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- David Hume Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHume extends Locke's empiricist starting point further than Locke took it.
