The Latin translation of tabula rasa is best known (literally) as "blank slate". However, it can be very often found in scientific, artistic and journalistic texts, as well as in the speech of people familiar with the Latin language. It became a stable expression many centuries ago, has significantly changed its meaning since then, absorbed new semantics, but remained in the language, settled down firmly and - moreover, is understood by all countries involved in European culture today, or by its so-called " heirs” (countries of the Americas).
History of expression
The history of the expression "tabula rasa" (for simplicity, we will write in Russian letters) is rooted in ancient literature and philosophy. It is first encountered in Aristotle's famous treatise On the Soul. His "tabula rasa" is simply a waxed tablet used for writing. Which were undoubtedly familiar to every literate person of those distant times. With her, the thinker compares the human mind.
Do not forget: the meaning of the expression, as already mentioned, changes with the developmentstories. The phrase was used more than once in the Middle Ages (in particular, by the Persian physician and philosopher, the eastern follower of the ideas of Aristotle, Avicenna). But it was most widely spread during the Enlightenment thanks to the famous English cultural figure John Locke (1632-1704).
Term in Enlightenment philosophy
In Locke's writings, "tabula rasa" is the pure mind of a newly born person, unclouded by ideas and knowledge. Being a sensualist, a supporter of the ideas of empiricism, Locke opposed the ideas of innate knowledge in humans; by such an expression he calls any soul before the life experience acquired by it. He believed that everything that makes up the personality and character of a person, the baggage of his skills and the load of complexes - all this is formed solely as he accumulates his own life experience.
Locke uses the term tabula rasa for the first time in his 1690 philosophical treatise en titled An Essay on Human Understanding. It is important to note that in the Enlightenment, in contrast to the traditions of the Middle Ages, such works are already written in the language of the author (in this case, respectively, in Latin). Thus, “tabula rasa” Latin, as the environment of its origin, already dead and having lost its former relevance, overcomes, invading, together with the intellectual and ideological revolution, into different countries and their languages.
Tabula rasa as a phraseologism of our days
Despite the fact that the expression "tabula rasa" is a whole story withdue to its own twists and turns (changes in semantics), names and references, the expression is used to this day, and far from being in such pretentious contexts as those of our philosopher predecessors.
For example, in addition to the sublimely poetic meaning already explained in the article, it can also be used in an ironic context. In this case, “tabula rasa” is perhaps a playful name for a student or pupil who has just been explained a whole topic in detail and with chewed examples, and who soon forgot everything right there. Of course, a poor teacher or teacher has to start explanations, as they say, “from scratch.”
Use
However, even the mentioned playful name is clearly not a word inhabitant of your active vocabulary. In an ironic sense, it is only appropriate to use such phraseologism in a university environment or among educated people who studied Latin at the university.
So, today “tabula rasa” is a kind of archaism, but archaism with its inherent taste: you can see it in such texts, where, along with this, such Latinisms as “ad hoc”, “nota bene”, “et cetera” and others.
