Tabula Rasa

1690

John Locke (1632–1704)

How do we gain knowledge? For the English philosopher John Locke, this was a fundamental question for which the answer was human experience. In his major work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke rejected the notion of innate ideas and argued that all ideas come through experience. Thus, at birth the human mind is a tabula rasa (Latin for “blank slate”) on which sensory experiences are inscribed, and its contents are those ideas that come from experiences. Knowledge, then, is a matter of the mind gathering experiences and ideas from the material world. Locke proposed a way in which we could understand how ideas could move from simple to complex through association. In doing so, he laid the foundation for empirical philosophy and, much later, the new science of psychology.

What motivated Locke to propose such a new and radical approach? When he was only ten years old, religious and political differences between the king and Parliament led to civil war, and for nearly twenty years, daily life was dangerous and full of conflict. He wanted to find a better basis for social life, and he thought he could help create conflict-free society by encouraging people to form clear and distinct ideas that were not based in political or religious excesses.

Why is this important for us today? In addition to sparking a Nature versus Nurture debate that extends to this day, Locke’s idea helped make it possible to think about human behavior in terms of natural law rather than divine intervention, ultimately making a science of psychology possible.

SEE ALSO The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Nature versus Nurture (1874), Behaviorism (1913), Enriched Environments (1961), Stanford Prison Experiment (1970)

Christ Church, Oxford University, where Locke was educated and where he taught early in his career.