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In 1689 John Locke compared the newborn mind to 'white paper', with no ideas built in from birth. Everything we know, he argued, is written on it by experience.

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Locke (1632–1704), an English philosopher and physician, set out the idea in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. At the time many thinkers held that some ideas, such as the idea of God or basic principles of logic, are born with us. Locke disagreed: he asked how the mind comes to be furnished with ideas and answered in one word, experience. It comes in two kinds: sensation, what we see, hear and touch, and reflection, noticing the workings of our own mind. The later label tabula rasa is Latin for 'scraped tablet', the wax writing tablet of the ancient world; Aristotle had used a similar image. The German philosopher Leibniz replied that the mind is more like a block of marble whose veins already favour certain shapes. Modern science takes a middle view: genes and experience work together, and neither tells the whole story.

Türkçe oku
John Locke 1689'da yeni doğan bir bebeğin zihnini, üzerinde hiçbir hazır fikir bulunmayan “beyaz bir kâğıda” benzetti. Ona göre bildiğimiz her şeyi bu kâğıda deneyim yazar.

İngiliz filozof ve hekim Locke (1632–1704), bu görüşü İnsan Anlığı Üzerine Bir Deneme'de ortaya koydu. O dönemde pek çok düşünür, Tanrı fikri ya da mantığın temel ilkeleri gibi bazı fikirlerin bizimle birlikte doğduğuna inanıyordu. Locke buna karşı çıktı: Zihnin fikirlerle nasıl dolduğunu sordu ve tek sözcükle yanıtladı: deneyim. Deneyim iki yoldan gelir: duyumlarla, yani gördüğümüz, duyduğumuz, dokunduğumuz şeylerle; bir de düşünümle, yani kendi zihnimizde olup biteni fark etmemizle. Bu görüşe sonradan tabula rasa dendi. Latincede “kazınmış levha” demektir; eski çağlarda üzerine yazılıp kazınarak silinen balmumu tabletlerin adıdır. Aristoteles de benzer bir imge kullanmıştı. Alman filozof Leibniz ise zihnin daha çok, damarları onu belirli biçimlere yatkın kılan bir mermer bloğuna benzediğini söyledi. Bugünkü bilim ikisinin arasında bir yerde durur: Genlerle deneyim birlikte çalışır, hiçbiri tek başına bütün hikâyeyi anlatmaz.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Tabula rasa
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