(four good attempts)
‘Tabula rasa’ meaning blank slate, is the thought that the human mind has no innate knowledge...
It is an empirical epistemological view
Tabula rasa shows that memories and truths are established ‘a posteriori’, or through experience.
The physical world writes upon the blank slate of the mind, establishing faint memories of the ‘bright and vivid’ real thing.
This view was first put forward by Locke in his book ‘An Essay Concerning The Human Mind’
Another concept of this thought is that imaginary images are established through comparing things already written upon your mind . Hume used the example of a golden mountain. Although no-one has ever seen a golden mountain, most people have seen mountains and gold. Therefore, these images are combined to create the image of a golden mountain.
This implies that you cannot imagine what you cannot create from your own memories, reinforcing the ‘Tabula rasa’ view, as you can only create through experience .
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The view that the mind is born a tabula rasa is the idea that it is born a blank slate with no knowledge at all. This view dates back as far as Aristotle who described the mind as an ‘unscribed tablet’ over two thousand years ago. A more recent philosopher, Locke, also believed in this theory. He believed that our experiences of the physical world write upon the blank slate and this is how we obtain knowledge. ’A posteriori’ is a truth gained through experience and the idea of empiricism suggests that these experiences are through our senses.
However, it was suggested that knowledge cannot only be obtained through our sensory experiences as we have knowledge of things that we can’t possibly have experienced. A philosopher who responded to this was Hume . He believed that our experiences of the physical world were ‘vivid and forceful’ and our ideas of that world are ‘faint and obscure’ He suggested that our knowledge is made up of our ideas of the physical world which we have through experience, OR our mind combines two of our ideas which makes an idea of something we haven’t necessarily experienced.
Hume used the idea of a ‘golden mountain’. It is clear that none of us have physically experienced a Golden Mountain , yet we can imagine it. This is because we have experienced gold and a mountain separately and our mind is simply merging them together.
All these theories are examples of empiricism, which is the suggestion that knowledge is gained through experiences of the physical world. (I wish this sentence specifically linked back to the ‘tabula rasa’ issue raised in the question )
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The view that the mind was a tabula rasa was first mentioned by Aristotle over 2 thousand years ago when he described the new born mind as a blank slate. This view was later adopted by the two british empiricists Locke and Hume. Locke wrote a book on the subject and Hume followed by saying that ideas in the mind are formed by impressions of the real world or by the combination of impressions eg gold and mountain – gold mountain.
The main argument about tabula rasa is that your behaviour and knowledge is not formed by nature (you are not born with it) but that it is instead nurtured and learned )(how you are brought up) . The main theory is that when you are born you know nothing.’ Tabula rasa’ is part of an empirical approach to epistemology where ideas are viewed as ‘a posteriori’.
Tabula Rasa is a completely contradictory idea to the rationalist movement, who believe that we are given certain, basic knowledge when we are born.
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Tabula rasa or blank slate is how empiricists, such as Hume and Locke, describe the human mind from birth. The world then writes itself upon this slate. Empiricists reject the view that we have innate ideas. The epistemological approach is empiricism and it says all of our knowledge is gained through our experiences and physical sensations of the world, in other words ‘a posteriori’ knowledge.
Aristotle was the first to compare the mind to an ‘unscribed tablet’ over two thousand years ago. Hume came up with the ‘golden mountain ‘ analogy. He said that we have sensed gold and a mountain, so they are in our knowledge. We can then cross-reference these two ideas to imagine what a golden mountain would be like, by reflecting upon previous experience.
Another such experiment would be that of a feral child such as in the book by Ibn Tufail, and whether this child had ideas of things like God without being exposed to or experiencing them. The tabula rasa approach is similar to that of the nurture argument – that our morals come from experience rather than instincts or nature.
Showing posts with label Tabula Rasa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tabula Rasa. Show all posts
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Monday, 10 May 2010
Strengths of the 'Tabula Rasa' Approach
Name: Credible-believable
Explain: Strong intuitive appeal, because it seems right that we are born without any knowledge and that we can gain it through our experience of the world. It also has strong intuitive appeal because it is hard to believe that we are born with knowledge and that we do not gain it through experience making the tabula rasa approach credible because it seems to match up with how we learn. Naive realism- sensations match reality, this makes the tabula rasa approach credible because it seems to match up with the world, it also makes it credible because it is hard to believe that our experiences do not match up with the 'real' world.
Name: Consistenct-coherent
Explain: The Tabula Rasa approach seems to be consistent with our experience of the world as we learn about things after we experience them, this is supported by hume as he said ideas must be tested or checked against experience and that if they correspond they are valid. He said ideas were faint and obscure and that sensory experiences are forceful and vivid this is also consistent as we cannot experience god so we have faint ideas about him, however we can experience cheese so have good knowledge about it.
or:
Intro: empiricist view- an epistemological stance in which knowledge is viewed as being derived ultimately from experience.
Eg. Locke and Hume
Tabula rasa is a blank slate. Our sense experience writes upon this slate.
Strength 1: credible or believable
People will accept it. They find it easy to understand and it has intuitive appeal.
People are comfortable with relying on their senses for information and they are confident that their senses are correct.
Strength 2: consistency, we can check the validity of these ideas.
Hume said that our ideas must be tested against our experiences, if they correspond, they are valid., ideas are only ‘faint and obscure’ whereas sense experiences are ‘vivid and forceful.’
This theory corresponds with our experiences, so it is credible.
or:
1) One of the Tabula Rasa strengths lie with the idea that it is more intuitive than rationalist approaches. Empiricist philosophers such as Locke argue that the approach is more readily acceptable since our sensations must match reality and it is more difficult for us to accept we have knowledge of something before we experience it, which is the basis for the rationalist idea of a priori knowledge. For example if we experience something it must exist because we experienced it. We can’t have had knowledge of it beforehand.
2) Another strength of the Tabula Rasa approach lies with the idea that we are born a blank slate, in Aristotle’s terms. An example of this is feral children. When children who have been abandoned very young and have been care of by animals, they have none of the knowledge that we expect from a child raised in human society. This means that the mind must be a blank slate since it is manipulated by the human’s surroundings.
or:
N – Tabula rasa holds strong intuitive appeal; it feels right to see it as a correct theory
E – Tabula rasa is credible because it’s based on sensations which we all experience. We don’t have to believe anything that we are told by someone else. But with this proposal of our minds being a tabula rasa – a ‘blank slate’ we can see it as credible because we can experience this ourselves.
I – For example we can see an red apple because there is a red apple, therefore we are gaining experience of this red apple and it is our first experience and it is ‘vivid and forceful’.
L – This is a strength of the tabula rasa approach because people are more likely to accept this theory because it feels right and sensations match reality.
Explain: Strong intuitive appeal, because it seems right that we are born without any knowledge and that we can gain it through our experience of the world. It also has strong intuitive appeal because it is hard to believe that we are born with knowledge and that we do not gain it through experience making the tabula rasa approach credible because it seems to match up with how we learn. Naive realism- sensations match reality, this makes the tabula rasa approach credible because it seems to match up with the world, it also makes it credible because it is hard to believe that our experiences do not match up with the 'real' world.
Name: Consistenct-coherent
Explain: The Tabula Rasa approach seems to be consistent with our experience of the world as we learn about things after we experience them, this is supported by hume as he said ideas must be tested or checked against experience and that if they correspond they are valid. He said ideas were faint and obscure and that sensory experiences are forceful and vivid this is also consistent as we cannot experience god so we have faint ideas about him, however we can experience cheese so have good knowledge about it.
or:
Intro: empiricist view- an epistemological stance in which knowledge is viewed as being derived ultimately from experience.
Eg. Locke and Hume
Tabula rasa is a blank slate. Our sense experience writes upon this slate.
Strength 1: credible or believable
People will accept it. They find it easy to understand and it has intuitive appeal.
People are comfortable with relying on their senses for information and they are confident that their senses are correct.
Strength 2: consistency, we can check the validity of these ideas.
Hume said that our ideas must be tested against our experiences, if they correspond, they are valid., ideas are only ‘faint and obscure’ whereas sense experiences are ‘vivid and forceful.’
This theory corresponds with our experiences, so it is credible.
or:
1) One of the Tabula Rasa strengths lie with the idea that it is more intuitive than rationalist approaches. Empiricist philosophers such as Locke argue that the approach is more readily acceptable since our sensations must match reality and it is more difficult for us to accept we have knowledge of something before we experience it, which is the basis for the rationalist idea of a priori knowledge. For example if we experience something it must exist because we experienced it. We can’t have had knowledge of it beforehand.
2) Another strength of the Tabula Rasa approach lies with the idea that we are born a blank slate, in Aristotle’s terms. An example of this is feral children. When children who have been abandoned very young and have been care of by animals, they have none of the knowledge that we expect from a child raised in human society. This means that the mind must be a blank slate since it is manipulated by the human’s surroundings.
or:
N – Tabula rasa holds strong intuitive appeal; it feels right to see it as a correct theory
E – Tabula rasa is credible because it’s based on sensations which we all experience. We don’t have to believe anything that we are told by someone else. But with this proposal of our minds being a tabula rasa – a ‘blank slate’ we can see it as credible because we can experience this ourselves.
I – For example we can see an red apple because there is a red apple, therefore we are gaining experience of this red apple and it is our first experience and it is ‘vivid and forceful’.
L – This is a strength of the tabula rasa approach because people are more likely to accept this theory because it feels right and sensations match reality.
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