John Locke

According to blank slate theory, the mind is completely blank at birth. From there, education, environment, and experiences – which are external, as well as material and/or immaterial – shape the child’s process of development. This leaves a lasting effect on who they become.

The blank slate, the dominant theory of human nature in modern intellectual life stating that humans are shaped entirely by their experiences and not by any preexisting biological mechanisms, is being challenged and soundly trounced by the cognitive, neural, and genetic sciences, said Steven Pinker, Harvard University.

The long-standing Judeo-Christian theory of human nature, based on a fundamentalist interpretation of biblical events, was replaced in the 20th century by a secular theory of human nature grounded in three doctrines, commonly referred to as the blank slate, the noble savage, and the ghost in the machine.

In psychology, the term “blank slate,” or tabula rasa, actually has two meanings. The first refers to a belief that at birth, all humans are born with the ability to become literally anything or anyone. This belief downplays the effects of genetics and biology on the development of the human personality.

Perhaps the clearest evidence against the blank slate concept is the fact that people remain much the same throughout their lives on personality dimensions. Some of us are extroverts. Others are introverts. Some of us are physically very active whereas others are less energetic.

Introduction. The image of the human mind as a tabula rasa (an emptied writing tablet) is widely believed to have originated with Locke in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and to be a characterization of the mind as formless and without predispositions at birth. Both beliefs are false.

innatism

Opposite of mind in its hypothetical blank state. innatism. innate behavior. innate knowledge. innateness.

Innate idea, in philosophy, an idea allegedly inborn in the human mind, as contrasted with those received or compiled from experience.

From a Kantian perspective, space/time, causality, even mathematics to a degree are innate ideas. They are prior to experience and are the principles of cognition.

Aristocles

Cogito, ergo sum is a philosophical statement that was made in Latin by René Descartes, usually translated into English as “I think, therefore I am”. The dictum is also sometimes referred to as the cogito.

Adventitious ideas are ideas derived from our experience of the world. Factitious ideas are ideas which may be illusory, or invented by the imagination. Descartes also argues that all innate ideas are clear and distinct concepts of reality. Adventitious or factitious ideas, however, may be unclear and indistinct.

The nature of a mind, Descartes says, is to think. If a thing does not think, it is not a mind. In terms of his ontology, the mind is an existing (finite) substance, and thought or thinking is its attribute.

The soul or atman, credited with the ability to enliven the body, was located by ancient anatomists and philosophers in the lungs or heart, in the pineal gland (Descartes), and generally in the brain.

The Heart