Summary
Tabula Rasa translates to blank slate, and it suggests the mind is blank slate on birth that is shaped entirely by the stimuli given from the outside world, and thus the individual self is the product of external conditioning.
Commentary
We as humans tend to take consistently common elements of our lives for granted. Do you deliberate about the sun failing to come up tomorrow? Do you ever worry gravity would suddenly switch off? I would hope not.
We do the same with the ideas and rituals shared within our community. Culture shock can be as disorienting as it is because it challenges the markers of stability in our alignment with the environment.
Tabula Rasa is one such idea. It seems that much of Western Enlightenment philosophy was based on the notion that at the time God creates souls to be placed into bodies, we are blank slates. Even as the societies incorporating these philosophies secularized, the notion of a mind that’s a blank slate remained embedded in public consciousness and philosophical culture. One of these consequences is a “mindset is everything” mentality in which our model of reality can be shaped through a reconfiguration of the mind’s thought processes. As Locke wrote, “Madness seems to be nothing but a disorder in the imagination.” So, in theory, if we can simply “fix” the imagination, we can fix mental ailments.
Those like Thomas Trotter took this as a cue to build relationships with patients that encouraged them to develop new habits in the place of compulsive substance use.
In modern debate culture, tabula rasa is a competitive rule or practice in which a judge will set aside all beliefs and information they gained from the outside world so that the debate determines the parameters of reality. Only the claims and arguments brought up by the debaters in that round will be relevant, even if the judge is aware of information that contradicts those claims. Some argue that it allows debates to be fair as it minimizes bias outside of the control of the debaters, while others argue it removes discussions about real issues from real-world applications.