Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T02:13:42.916Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tabula Rasa and Human Nature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2012

Robert Duschinsky
Robert Duschinsky*
Affiliation:
Northumbria University
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is widely believed that the philosophical concept of ‘tabula rasa’ originates with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and refers to a state in which a child is as formless as a blank slate. Given that both these beliefs are entirely false, this article will examine why they have endured from the eighteenth century to the present. Attending to the history of philosophy, psychology, psychiatry and feminist scholarship it will be shown how the image of the tabula rasa has been used to signify an originary state of formlessness, against which discourses on the true nature of the human being can differentiate their position. The tabula rasa has operated less as a substantive position than as a whipping post. However, it will be noted that innovations in psychological theory over the past decade have begun to undermine such narratives by rendering unintelligible the idea of an ‘originary’ state of human nature.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 87 , Issue 4 , October 2012 , pp. 509 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Leary, D.E. (ed.), Metaphors in the History of Psychology, (Cambridge: CUP 1999)Google Scholar. Some of the material in this article will also appear in a different form in a short entry on ‘Tabula Rasa’ for the forthcoming International Encyclopaedia of Critical Psychology.

2 Derrida, J., Writing and Difference, trans. Bass, Alan, (London: Routledge ([1967] 1978)Google Scholar.

3 Brill, A.A., Basic Principles of Psychoanalysis, (NY: University Press of America, 1921), 16Google Scholar.

4 Forrester, J., The Seductions of Psychoanalysis, (London: Routledge, 1990), 81Google Scholar.

5 Nietzsche, F., On the Genealogy of Morality, ed. Ansell-Pearson, Keith, (Cambridge: CUP, ([1887] 1997), 35Google Scholar.

6 Weber, M., The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Parsons, T., (NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, [1905] 1958), 182Google Scholar.

7 Agamben, G., The Kingdom and the Glory, trans. Chiesa, Lorenzo, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, [2008] 2012), 4Google Scholar.

8 C. Moss, ‘Frozen lands that can thaw the conscience’ Daily Telegraph, 14th January 2012.

9 Aristotle, De Anima trans. Smith, J.A., (Oxford: Clarendon University Press, 1931), 430aGoogle Scholar.

10 Agamben, G., ‘Bartleby, or On Contingency’ in Potentialities, ed. Heller-Roazen, Daniel, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, ([1993] 1996), 244–5Google Scholar.

11 Polansky, R., Aristotle's De anima, (Cambridge: CUP, 2007), 454Google Scholar.

12 Agamben, G., ‘Bartleby, or On Contingency’ in Potentialities, ed. Heller-Roazen, Daniel, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, [1993] 1996), 249Google Scholar.

13 Aquinas, A Summa of the Summa, ed. Kreeft, Peter J., Fransisco, San, (CA.: Ignatius Press, [1274] 1990), 271–4Google Scholar.

14 Descartes, R., ‘The Search After Truth by the Light of Nature’ in Philosophical Essays and Correspondence, ed. Ariew, Roger, (NY: Hackett Publishing Company, [1641?] 2000), 320Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., 321.

16 Wolin, S., Tocqueville between two worlds: the making of a political and theoretical life, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 41Google Scholar.

17 Payne, W., Learning and Knowledge, (London: Walter Kettilby, 1682), 11Google Scholar.

18 Whichcote, B., ‘That those who are truly religious will be delivered from all dangerous errors about religion’ in The Works of the Learned Benjamin Whichcote, Volume II, (Aberdeen: Alexander Thomson, [1651] 1703), 4Google Scholar.

19 Masham, D., cited in Yolton, J.S., A Locke Miscellany, (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1990), 349Google Scholar

20 Harrison, J. & Laslett, P., The Library of John Locke, (Oxford: OUP, 1965)Google Scholar.

21 More, H., ‘An Antidote to Atheism’ in A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings, (London: William Morden, [1655] 1712), 17Google Scholar.

22 Marvell, A., ‘Upon Appleton House’ in Marvell: The Complete Poems, ed. Bate, Jonathan, (London: Penguin [1951] 1972), lines 445–8Google Scholar.

23 Marvell, A., ‘A Nymph Complaining at the Loss of her Fawn’ in Marvell: The Complete Poems, ed. Bate, Jonathan, (London: Penguin [1951] 1972), lines 1, 89Google Scholar.

24 Locke, J., ‘Essays on the Law of Nature’ in Locke: Political Writings, ed. Goldie, Mark, (Cambridge: CUP, [1664] 1997), 96Google Scholar.

25 Locke, J., ‘Draft A’ in Drafts for the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and other Philosophical Writings, ed. Nidditch, Peter H. & Rogers, G.A.J., (London: Clarendon Press, [1671] 1990), 7–8Google Scholar.

26 Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd ed., trans. Smith, Norman Kemp, (NY: Palgrave, [1787] 2007) 121–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Locke, J., ‘Draft B’ in Drafts for the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and other Philosophical Writings, ed. Nidditch, Peter H. & Rogers, G.A.J., (London: Clarendon Press, [1671] 1990), 128Google Scholar.

28 Locke, J., An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and other Philosophical Writings, ed. Nidditch, Peter H., (London: Clarendon Press, [1690] 1979), 104Google Scholar.

29 Plotkin, H., Evolutionary Thought in Psychology, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Locke, J., An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and other Philosophical Writings, ed. Nidditch, Peter H., (London: Clarendon Press, [1690] 1979), 202Google Scholar.

31 Locke, J., Some Thoughts Concerning Education, and Of the Conduct of the Understanding, ed. Grant, Ruth W. & Narcov, Nathan, (London: Clarendon Press, [1693] 1996) 44, 161Google Scholar.

32 Jeffreys, E.g. M.V.C., Locke: Prophet of Common Sense, (London: Methuen 1967)Google Scholar; Walker, W., Locke, Literary Criticism and Philosophy, (Cambridge: CUP, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Dewey, J. ‘Contributions to Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology’ in The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 2, 1899 – 1924, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann & Hook, Sidney, (Carbondale, IL.:Southern Illinois University Press, [1902] 1976), 256Google Scholar.

34 Leibniz, G.W., New Essays on Human Understanding, ed. Remnant, Peter & Bennett, John, (Cambridge: CUP [1765] 1996), P54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Laclau, E., New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, (NY: Verso, 1990), 18, 56Google Scholar.

36 Hume, D., An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Steinberg, Eric, 2nd ed., (NY: Hackett Publications Company, [1777] 1993), 13Google Scholar.

37 Molyneux, W., ‘Réflections de Mr. L–.’ in The Correspondence of John Locke: Letters nos. 2199–2664, ed. De Beer, Esmond Samuel, (Oxford: OUP, [1697] 1981), 779, my translationGoogle Scholar

38 Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd ed., trans. Smith, Norman Kemp, (NY: Palgrave, [1787] 2007), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Wahrman, D., The Making of the Modern Self, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 186Google Scholar.

40 Hegel, G.W.F., Lectures on the History of Philosophy, II, ed. Brown, Robert F., (Oxford: OUP, ([1826] 2006), 226Google Scholar.

41 Patterson, R.H., Essays in History and Art, (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1861), 82Google Scholar.

42 Ibid. 174.

43 Rand, A., The Virtue of Selfishness: a new concept of egoism, (New York: New American Library, 1964), 52Google Scholar. My thanks to inestimably erudite Benjamin Crowne for this reference.

44 King, R., Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 149Google Scholar.

45 Le Bon, G., The Psychology of Socialism, trans. Miall, Bernard, (NY: Transaction, [1899] 1981), 62Google Scholar.

46 Durkheim, E., The Evolution of Educational Thought, (London: Routledge, [1904] 1977), 78Google Scholar.

47 Husserl, E., Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, [1954] 1970), 85Google Scholar.

48 Allport, G., Becoming: basic considerations for a psychology of personality, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), 7–8Google Scholar.

49 Davies, M., Childhood Sexual Abuse and the Construction of Identity, (Bristol, PA.: Taylor & Francis, 1995), 75Google Scholar.

50 Duschinsky, R., ‘Childhood Innocence: Essence, Education, Performativity’ Textual Practice, 2012, in pressGoogle Scholar.

51 Abed, R.T., ‘Psychiatry and Darwinism: Time to reconsider?’ The British Journal of Psychiatry 177 (2000): 1–3, at 2CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

52 Sherry, J.L., ‘Media Effects Theory and the Nature/Nurture Debate: A Historical Overview and Directions for Future Research’ Media Psychology 6 (2004): 83–109, at 88, parentheses suppressedCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Harris, J.R., ‘Socialization, personality development, and the child's environments’ Developmental Psychology, 36 (2000), 699–710, at 701CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; citing Vandell, D.L. ‘Parents, peer groups, and other socializing influences’ Developmental Psychology, 36 (2000): 699–710CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

54 Foucault, M., ‘Nietzsche, History, Genealogy’ in Aesthetics: Essential Works Volume 2, ed. Faubion, James D., (London: Penguin, ([1971] 1998), 375Google Scholar.

55 Butler, J., ‘Foucault and the Paradox of Bodily Inscriptions’ The Journal of Philosophy, 86(11) (1989): 601–607, at 603CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Turner, T., ‘Bodies and Anti-Bodies’ in Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self, ed. Csordas, Thomas J., (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), 37Google Scholar.

57 Bartky, S.L., ‘Agency: What is the Problem?’ in Provoking Agents: Theorizing Gender and Agency, ed. Gardiner, Judith Kegan, (Champaign, IL., University of Illinois Press, 1995), 188–9Google Scholar.

58 Kirby, V., Telling flesh: the substance of the corporeal, (London: Routledge, 1997), 44, 147Google Scholar.

59 Geuss, R., Morality, Culture and History, (Cambridge: CUP, 1999), 13Google Scholar.

60 McLaren, M.A., Feminism, Foucault, and Embodied Subjectivity, (NY: SUNY, 2002), 206Google Scholar.

61 Foucault, M., The Order of Things, (London: Routledge, [1966] 1989), 79Google Scholar.

62 Rutter, M., Genes and Behaviour, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005)Google Scholar.

63 Pinker, S., The Blank Slate, (London: Penguin, 2002), 6Google Scholar.

64 Schaffer, D.R. & Kipp, K., Developmental Psychology, 7th ed., (Belmont, CA: Thompson Higher Education, 2007), 8Google Scholar.

65 Lennox, P., ‘Pecking order’ Times Higher Educational Supplement, 4th February, 2010Google Scholar.

66 Kenrick, D.T. et al., ‘Evolutionary Cognitive Science’ in From Mating to Mentality, (Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2003), 21Google Scholar.

67 Mitchell, C. & Reid-Walsh, J., Girl Culture, (Westport, CT.: Greenwood Publishing, 2008), 365Google Scholar.

68 The Guardian, 23 June 2011

69 Wasserman, J.A. & Clair, J.M., ‘The Medicalization of Homelessness and the Sociology of the Self’ Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 37 (2011): 29–62, at 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Z. Williams, ‘I called my daughter Harper first’ Guardian, 11th July, 2011.

71 A. Graham-Dixon, ‘Age of Innocence’ Sunday Telegraph, 5th August, 2007.