Tabula Rasa

 

Tabula rasa is a Latin phrase often translated as "blank slate" in English and originates from the Roman tabula used for notes, which was blanked by heating the wax and then smoothing it.

 Epistemology (ⁱ/ᵻˌpɪstᵻˈmɒlədʒi/; from Greek ἐπιστήμη, epistēmē, meaning "knowledge, understanding", and λόγος, logos, meaning "word") is a word first used by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier to describe the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge.

Tabula rasa is a Latin phrase often translated as "blank slate" in English and originates from the Roman tabula used for notes, which was blanked by heating the wax and then smoothing it. This roughly equates to the English term "blank slate" (or, more literally, "erased slate") which refers to the emptiness of a slate sheet previous to it being written on with chalk. Both may be refreshed repeatedly, by melting the wax or by erasing the chalk.

In Western philosophy, the concept of tabula rasa can be traced back to the writings of Aristotle who writes in his treatise "Περί Ψυχῆς" (De Anima or On the Soul) of the "unscribed tablet." In one of the more well-known passages of this treatise he writes that:

Have not we already disposed of the difficulty about interaction involving a common element, when we said that mind is in a sense potentially whatever is thinkable, though actually it is nothing until it has thought? What it thinks must be in it just as characters may be said to be on a writing-tablet on which as yet nothing stands written: this is exactly what happens with mind.

Image @ https://flic.kr/p/dJRTNH