The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker - PART I. Chapter 1. (part 1) | Текст песни

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The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.
by Steven Pinker.

PART I. Chapter 1. (part 1) The Official Theory
“Blank slate” is a loose translation of the medieval Latin term tabula rasa — literally, “scraped tablet.” It is commonly attributed to the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), though in fact he used a different metaphor. Here is the famous passage from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:

- Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.

Locke was taking aim at theories of innate ideas in which people were thought to be born with mathematical ideals, eternal truths, and a notion of God. His alternative theory, empiricism, was intended both as a theory of psychology — how the mind works — and as a theory of epistemology — how we come to know the truth. Both goals helped motivate his political philosophy, often honored as the foundation of liberal democracy.

Locke opposed dogmatic justifications for the political status quo, such as the authority of the church and the divine right of kings, which had been touted as self-evident truths. He argued that social arrangements should be reasoned out from scratch and agreed upon by mutual consent, based on knowledge that any person could acquire.

Since ideas are grounded in experience, which varies from person to person, differences of opinion arise not because one mind is equipped to grasp the truth and another is defective, but because the two minds have had different histories.

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