tabula rasa

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Tabula Rasa

(Latin, “smoothed tablet” or “clean slate”), a term used in sensationalism to describe the mind in its primary blank state, that is, before it has acquired any knowledge through external sensory experience—as, for example, the mind of a newborn infant. The notion of tabula rasa appears in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, as well as in later philosophers, such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, who developed it from a theological standpoint. T. Hobbes and P. Gassendi compared the mind to a slate on which experience leaves its marks. The term came into wide use after J. Locke, who adopted it in his critique of the theory of innate ideas (see Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding).

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References in periodicals archive

In this more permissive state, the cells no longer retain the memory of their previous lineages and revert to a blank slate with unrestricted potential to become any adult cell.

Scientists reverse human stem cells to original state

"What we have is a blank slate, and it is our job today as town officials to shut up and listen,'' Mr.

Session spurs Westboro State property ideas; 'Road map' forges plans for future of hospital campus

--reason.com commenter "The Immaculate Trouser" in response to "The Blank Slate State" (June)

Reaction

And in "Blank Slate," Silas Hansen examines his difficult relationship with the name his parents chose for him when he was born.

Editors' page

This book helps Western readers reimagine Africa not as a blank slate onto which slavery and colonialism projected European visions of race and nation, but as groups of people dealing with their own pre-existing visions of otherness: European visions of black Africans, black African visions of Indians, Afro-Indian visions of both others.

Taifa; making nation and race in urban Tanzania

"Flagships really challenge you to start with a blank slate and recreate your business," Stiller says.

Flagship locations stir creativity

"Congress was writing on a mostly blank slate in crafting an immediate legislative response to the financial crisis," Tarullo said.

Fed Gov. Tarullo: Dodd-Frank focus on stability a departure

The daily said a meeting between Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek and scholars largely focused making the new constitution from scratch or on "a blank slate." Daily ZAMAN called on lawmakers to "take advantage of the historic opportunity," to write a new constitution.

Turkish press review

Louis) published her first novel, Dancing with Gravity (273 pages; Blank Slate Press, March 201V, $24.95 hard cover, $14.95 paperback, $9.99 ebook, $26.99 audio book)."Every hero's journey involves a coming of age story," press materials state.

Anene Tressler

Existing mechanisms of recruitment for consensus conferences, for example, are premised on a "blank slate" approach to participation.

Rethink technology assessment

Nightwood Design has transformed the large retail space at be@schermerhorn, a condominium tower in Downtown Brooklyn, from its original blank slate into a series of displays raimagining the shapes, mythology and relativity of shelters.