Locke: (1632-1704)

Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1690

Tabula Rasa

 

This is the idea that reshapes the world and, I will argue this semester, is the basis for most all modern -- and Post Modern -- thought.  Yet it is an idea so now familiar to us all (since we are modern thinkers) that it's hard to imagine a world in which most people hadn't thought of thought the way Locke taught us to think.

 

Although Locke could not have foreseen this, this theory is the basis of fundamental values expressed in the Declaration of Independence.  It's the basis of modern psychology.  It's the basis of our legal system.  It's the basis of educational theory.

 

Locke's theory is a direct response to Plato's (and Descartes') theory that man is born with innate understanding of the "Ideal" or "Forms".  If you're not familiar with Plato's theory of knowledge and how it dominated all Western theology and philosophy, you cannot really appreciate how radically Locke's tabula rasa changed everything.

 

Locke's radical thought: 

a) There are "No Innate Ideas".  All humans are born with a tabula rasa or blank slate.

 

b) Therefore, all knowledge is derived from "experience: sensation and reflection".

 

Sensation: this refers to perception of objective world; what we learn from experiencing reality through our senses.  Note that this would include what we receive thru language -- what others tell us, write etc.

 

Reflection: this refers to consciousness or “the notice which the mind takes of its own operations." Essentially this is the mind's ability to combine and analyze and evaluate what we gather through sensation.  Note: this "reflection" includes “passions” (what we would call "emotions").

 

“These two … [Sensation and Reflection] … are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings.”

 

Note that he is interested in knowledge, in ideas, and this leaves room for what we would now call "instinct" as a separate category driving human attention and behavior.  You could say that things like hunger and sexuality are instinctual/innate, but the ideas we have about these drives is the realm of Experience.  Our bodies drive us to eat and procreate, but our consciousness, knowledge, drives us to choose what and when we eat and act on our desires.

 

And there it is; that's the whole idea.

 

But this idea changes everything in part because it carries enormous political/social (and psychological, educational etc.) implications:  If intelligence is a product of environment (experience), not birth, social class, lineage etc., then intelligence is accessible to all.  This is the specific concept that inspires Jefferson to write -- and more importantly, believe that "all men are created equal."

 

We are also interested in how this theory sets the platform for Locke's most important political contribution, tolerance, but, really we'll trace the implications of Locke's tabula rasa all semester, as we follow it up to the present day.