The expression tabula rasa refers to a table or blackboard that is blank.
The Latin expression tabula rasa refers to a clean board or slate ; that is, without writing. The concept refers to that which lacks past facts or content .
The idea of tabula rasa is used by some philosophers regarding how, according to their vision, people are born: with a blank mind . This theory indicates that human beings do not have innate skills or knowledge , but must develop them through experience and learning .
The tabula rasa according to different thinkers
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was one of the thinkers who postulated the notion of tabula rasa. For the Greek, knowledge is generated by sensory perception , which is then processed by the intellect and thus concepts are formed. Therefore, there is no knowledge at birth, but rather it is generated over time.
John Locke (1632-1704), meanwhile, maintained that at the beginning of life the mind is a tabula rasa since it does not present ideas . Experience , according to the British, is what allows it to be “filled” with knowledge.
A reference to empiricism , the doctrine of philosophy that precisely places experience as the first step in the production of knowledge, Locke rejected the existence of innate ideas. There are, thus, no truths about God or mathematical structures in the day one of the mind.
According to science
For the neurobiology and psychology communities, the cortex of the brain has the programming and organization necessary for the processing of sensory stimuli, the regulation of emotions, the reflective response and the control of motor actions, always that certain conditions are met. From this point, fundamental in all human beings, it is possible to learn other skills and refine them. Steven Arhtur Pinker , an important cognitive scientist born in Canada, states that we are born with brain programming to perceive oral language spontaneously, while written language must be learned and refined .
This concept of tabula rasa does not speak of a completely empty beginning, but of a base that allows us to acquire the necessary knowledge to function in the environment that receives us when we are born. In fact, science maintains that we do not bring innate conditions by having one sex or another, by belonging to a race or an ethnicity, but that all the characteristics of our personality are rooted in the experiences we have from the beginning of our life. In this way, we can say that we are a whiteboard with many fundamental functions and tools, but that each individual writes something unique on it.
Although the concept of science has changed a lot since its origins and continues to evolve to the point of overturning truths that have accompanied us for decades, its objective is always the search for knowledge that can be proven without exception, of results that are repeated over and over again. again after the same procedures . That is why his vision of the tabula rasa is important, because it is based on physical issues that have been studied in the laboratory.
Aristotle is one of the philosophers who reflected on the mind as a tabula rasa at the moment of birth.
A TV series
“Tabula rasa” , on the other hand, is the name of a Belgian TV series that premiered in 2017 and two years later came to Netflix .
The story introduces Mie , a young amnesiac who is admitted to a psychiatric hospital and is the main suspect in the case of the disappearance of a man. To prove her innocence, the woman will have to remember and help reconstruct what happened.