Introduction
The image of the human mind as a tabula rasa (an emptied writing tablet) is widely believed to have originated with Locke in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and to be a characterization of the mind as formless and without predispositions at birth. Both beliefs are false. On the one hand, the image of the tabula rasa has a long, winding history back to Greek thought. On the other hand, Locke did not use the term “tabula rasa” in the Essay, but rather spoke of the child’s mind as “white paper”; he does not use the image to argue that the child begins formless and pure but that the mind is initially dependent upon experience for its operation. These false but widespread beliefs suggest that the tabula rasa has been used to signify a zero point of utter formlessness, against which discourses on the true nature of the human mind can differentiate their position.
Definition
In his influential Basic Principles of Psychoanalysis, which introduced Freud to American...
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Duschinsky, R. (2014). Tabula Rasa. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_515
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