Tabula rasa - what does it mean? The history of the phrase “Tabula rasa” (Tabula rasa) What does tabula rasa mean.

Translated from Latin, this expression sounds like “clean sheet” or, literally, “blank slate”.

The history of the appearance of phraseological units

The expression first appeared in the writings of the Greek Aristotle, where the thinker compared the human mind to a wax tablet. The Persian scientist and healer Avicenna compared the mind of a newborn to a blank slate.

The fact is that in the ancient world, which did not know paper, tablets made of clay or stone, covered with a layer of wax, were used for writing. Writing was applied to them using a pointed stick - a stylus. With its reverse end it was possible to remove the recording and reuse the surface.

The Romans picked up the expression and translated it into their own language. They also gave us the word “style” as a designation for the manner of expressing thoughts. The Latin proverb was already used by the 17th century philosopher John Locke in his treatise on reason. It was after his work that the expression “Tabula rasa” took root in its modern meaning.

Expression value

Today the expression “Tabula Rasa” is used to describe consciousness, not clouded by experience brought from the outside, it is also used in a figurative sense and means “to start something from scratch.”

The thesis that a separate human individual is born without innate or built-in mental content, that is, pure, his resource of knowledge is completely built from experience and sensory perception of the external world.

For the ancient Romans, in a figurative sense, tabula rasa meant an empty space, and the expression “to make a tabula rasa out of something” meant “to reduce something to nothing.” Literally, a clean, scraped board, that is, an empty board.

The idea that human intelligence at birth is a “blank slate” is expressed, in particular, by Avicenna.

The Latin phrase tabula rasa became widely known thanks to the English philosopher John Locke, who adopted the legacy of the previous philosophical tradition and used this term to criticize the theory of innate ideas in his treatise “An Essay Concerning Human Reason” (1690)

Over time, the meaning of this phrase acquired a figurative secondary meaning “from scratch,” meaning events, feelings, philosophy.

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Notes

Literature

• Yu. S. Tsybulnik. Winged Latin expressions. - M.: AST, 2003. - P. 65. - 830 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-17-016376-2..

Excerpt characterizing Tabula rasa

“Mon cher Boris, [Dear Boris,”] said Princess Anna Mikhailovna to her son when Countess Rostova’s carriage, in which they were sitting, drove along the straw-covered street and drove into the wide courtyard of Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhy. “Mon cher Boris,” said the mother, pulling her hand out from under her old coat and with a timid and affectionate movement placing it on her son’s hand, “be gentle, be attentive.” Count Kirill Vladimirovich is still your godfather, and your future fate depends on him. Remember this, mon cher, be as sweet as you know how to be...
“If I had known that anything other than humiliation would come out of this...” the son answered coldly. “But I promised you and I’m doing this for you.”
Despite the fact that someone’s carriage was standing at the entrance, the doorman, looking at the mother and son (who, without ordering to report themselves, directly entered the glass vestibule between two rows of statues in niches), looking significantly at the old cloak, asked who they wanted whatever, the princesses or the count, and, having learned that the count, said that their Lordships are worse off now and their Lordships do not receive anyone.
“We can leave,” the son said in French.
- Mon ami! [My friend!] - said the mother in a pleading voice, again touching her son’s hand, as if this touch could calm or excite him.
Boris fell silent and, without taking off his overcoat, looked questioningly at his mother.
“Darling,” Anna Mikhailovna said in a gentle voice, turning to the doorman, “I know that Count Kirill Vladimirovich is very ill... that’s why I came... I’m a relative... I won’t bother you, dear... But I just need to see Prince Vasily Sergeevich: because he is standing here. Report back, please.
The doorman sullenly pulled the string upward and turned away.
“Princess Drubetskaya to Prince Vasily Sergeevich,” he shouted to a waiter in stockings, shoes and a tailcoat who had run down from above and was looking out from under the ledge of the stairs.
The mother smoothed out the folds of her dyed silk dress, looked into the solid Venetian mirror in the wall and walked briskly up the staircase carpet in her worn-out shoes.

0 Any person is designed in such a way that he wants to stand out and show that he is better than others. Representatives of the fair sex especially distinguished themselves in this, as they have no special advantages other than their appearance. Although now we are talking about intellectual superiority, because it also gives pleasure and raises you in the eyes of others. Therefore, in order to seem like a very smart and intelligent person in every sense, you need to intersperse your everyday speech with wise sayings and proverbs that came to us from other times or languages. Today we’ll talk about a rather beautiful phrase, this Tabula rasa, you can read the translation a little lower. Today, life dictates its own rules to us, when it is necessary to constantly absorb new knowledge so as not to be branded as an outsider. Therefore, add our website to your bookmarks so that you can check in with us from time to time.
However, before you continue, I would like to show you a couple of my new publications on the topic of phraseological units. For example, what does Look at the root mean; how to understand No big deal; the meaning of the expression To say goodbye means to deny separation; what does it mean? Fear has big eyes, etc.
So let's continue What does tabula rasa mean?? This expression was borrowed from the Latin language " tabula rasa", which can be translated as " blank board".

Tabula rasa- means that a person is born with a completely pure consciousness, and the future resource of knowledge is built on the basis of sensory perception and experience of the external world

In fact, the ancients compared the mind to a wax-covered board on which life leaves its writing. In a figurative sense, “Tabula rasa” among the Romans meant “insignificant event”, “empty space”, and the saying to make a tabula rasa out of something meant "to nullify", "to nullify", "to destroy".

Nowadays, this term is used to designate something undefined, unsettled, for example, the memory of a newborn baby, in which life has not yet left traces.
Pretty interesting origin such a wise saying.

In ancient times, when people had not yet invented parchment and paper, they used a fairly simple method to write down their thoughts. To do this, flat planks were cut and covered with a thin layer of wax. It was on them that literate people made their calculations, recorded income and expenses. Moreover, if a person made a mistake, he could easily erase part of his notes with the blunt end of the stylus/style. As a result, space was freed up where new entries could be placed. English philosopher and educator John Locke ( 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) once compared the pure consciousness of a child, not yet touched by upbringing, to a wax tablet without notes. This comparison appealed to educated people, and the image invented by the philosopher became catchphrase in many languages ​​of the world.

By the way, did you notice that on these tablets they wrote " styles"(mentioned above)? Subsequently this word formed the modern concept" style"At times some Romans spoke with envy," he has great style", which meant the writing accessory itself, the instrument itself (stylus). Then, as we now mean by this term "way of expression", "manner of writing".

After reading this article, you found out what is tabula rasa translation, and now you can show off this expression among your friends or loved ones.

- (lat. - smooth, clean board). To write a new text on a wax tablet, the old text was erased (the wax was smoothed); in a figurative sense, tabula rasa means the destruction of the old meaning for the sake of the new. Philosophers of antiquity (Plato, Aristotle, etc.), the Middle Ages (Albert the Great), and the Enlightenment (J. Locke) compared the initial state of man and his soul with a blank slate. At the same time, of course, each author brought his own meaning to the metaphor.

Word thing etymologically related to Lat. vox“word, voice”, therefore, a thing, regardless of our relationship to it, has its own voice, by your destiny. “It is not possible for us to predict how our word will respond...” Can I be sure that "our word" really "is our"? In addition to the right to own a thing, a person is not deprived of the opportunity to “listen” to the voice of the thing itself, to comprehend the dialect her places, her time: “...space prepares things to belong each to their own “for what” and, starting from here, to each other” (M. Heidegger).

In Latin tabula- 1) board, plate, table; 2) writing board; 3) record, document; 4) money changer; 5) votive tablet, memorial tablet (in memory of the good deeds of the gods); 6) board for playing (dice, etc.); 7) picture; 8) a section of a field; 9) geographic map; 10) pl. folds of clothing (Tertullian “On the Cloak”; with tabella - fan). Word meanings tabella basically coincide with the values tabula. Let us point out only one exception: the “plank cradle”. Ovid writes about the cradle launched with the infants Romulus and Remus: quantum fati parva tabellae vehit! what a (great) destiny on a small tablet!

Word to Plato:

"Socrates. So, to understand me, imagine that in our souls there is a wax tablet; Some have it more, some have less, some have cleaner wax, others have dirtier wax, or some have it harder, while others have it softer, but some have it in moderation.

Theaetetus. I imagined.

Socrates. Let us now say that this is a gift from the mother of the Muses Mnemosyne, and by placing it under our sensations and thoughts we make in it an imprint of what we want to remember from what we have seen, heard or invented by ourselves, as if leaving fingerprints of rings on it. And what freezes in this wax, we remember and know as long as the image of it is preserved, but when it is erased or there is no longer room for new imprints, then we forget and no longer know... And this is what they say happens from here. If in someone’s soul the wax is deep, abundant, smooth and sufficiently kneaded, then what penetrates here through sensations is imprinted in this, as Homer said, the heart of the soul, and the “heart” ( It is no coincidence that χέαρ) sounds almost the same as wax (χηρός), and the signs that appear in such people are pure, quite deep and thus durable. It is precisely these people who are most amenable to learning, and they have the best memory, they do not confuse the signs of sensations and always have a true opinion... When is this heart, which our wise poet sang, shaggy or when it is dirty and not made of pure wax and either it is too loose or hard, then those who have it loose, although they are understanding, turn out to be forgetful, while those who have it hard - on the contrary; Those whose wax is not smooth, rough and stony, mixed with earth and manure, produce unclear imprints. They are unclear both for those who have hard wax tablets, because they have no depth, and for those who have them too soft, because the prints, spreading, become illegible. If, in addition to all this, someone also has a small soul, then, crawling closely one on top of the other, they become even more illegible" (Theaetetus 191 c-e; 194 c - 195 a).

In the dialogue "Philebus", where, like in the "Theaetetus", we are talking about knowledge and true knowledge, Socrates compares the soul with a book: "Memory, directed towards the same thing as sensations, and the impressions associated with these sensations seem to me, as it were, writing down the corresponding speeches in our soul. And when such an impression is written down correctly, then from this we get a true opinion and true speeches; but when this scribe makes a false record, we get speeches that are contrary to the truth" (Philebus 39a). Further, Socrates says that in our souls there is another master - “a painter who, following the scribe, draws images of the named in the soul.”

Jose Ortega y Gasset reconstructs the situation in which the “wax tablet” metaphor emerged. Let's say we're looking at the Guadarrama mountain range. Its height is about 2000 m. The fact that we see, realize, perceive a mountain indicates that at the moment this mountain “is” in us. But how can a mountain 2 thousand meters high enter consciousness, which is not space at all? For ancient man, the relationship between a person and the object he perceives is similar to the relationship between two physical objects, one of which, when in contact with the other, leaves its imprint on it. The metaphor of a seal leaving its imprint on a wax surface took root in the minds of the Hellenes and determined the development of philosophical ideas for many centuries.

At first glance, in this teaching there is no bias in determining the status of subject and object. But upon closer examination we notice that the role of the subject is infringed. To agree that a material object can leave its imprint on an immaterial object means to equalize their nature, that is, to take seriously the analogy with wax and a seal.

In the ancient view of the world, the “I” does not play a big role. The Greeks did not use this word at all in their philosophical writings. Both the Greek and the Roman were looking for standards of behavior, an ethical law in accordance with the human cosmos. The Stoics, who inherited the classical tradition, taught to live in harmony with nature, to be like her, whole and unperturbed. “I,” the outstretched hand of a blind man (Aristotle directly compares the soul to a hand), feels the paths of the Universe, paving paths for its advancement.

The Renaissance, which was not a return to antiquity, as many hearsay claims, overcame this teaching. It inverted the relationship between subject and object. The image of a wax-covered tablet is incompatible with the Renaissance idea of ​​consciousness. The metaphor of the seal is replaced by the metaphor of the vessel and its contents. Objects do not enter consciousness from the outside, they are contained in something not itself; these are ideas.

Ancient philosophy highest value gives sensory perception. The new age is focused on imagination. In his concept, it is not objects that move towards the subject, but the subject himself who excites them within himself. If we just want it, we will pull a centaur out of oblivion, who will gallop, throwing his tail and mane in the spring wind, and rush through the emerald meadows following the elusive shadows of white nymphs. Thus consciousness is creativity.

So, Fortune suddenly turned her face to the “I”. As in oriental fairy tales, a beggar woke up as a prince. Leibniz dared to call man a little god. Kant made the “I” the supreme legislator of Nature. And Fichte, with his penchant for extremes, proclaimed that “I am everything.” 1 .

In the Book of Proverbs there is a Song of Wisdom: “The Lord had me as the beginning of His way, before His creatures, from time immemorial: from the beginning I was anointed, before the existence of the earth. I was born when there were no deeps yet, when there were no springs abundant with water. I was born before the mountains were erected, before the hills, when He had not yet created the earth, nor the fields, nor the first specks of dust of the universe. When He prepared the heavens, I was there. When He drew a circular line across the face of the abyss, when He established the clouds above, when strengthened the sources of the abyss, when he gave the sea a charter so that the waters would not cross its borders, when he laid the foundations of the earth: then I was an artist with Him and was a joy every day, rejoicing in His face all the time, rejoicing in His earthly circle, and my joy was with the sons of men" (Proverbs 8:22-31).

The Apocalypse is, as it is said in its first verse, “the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon happen. And he showed it by sending it through his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and the testimony Jesus Christ and what he saw." The exhibition of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg contains a four-part Novgorod icon of the 15th century, one of the details of which is called “The Evangelist John Dictates to Prokhor.” According to legend, Prokhor was a disciple of the apostle. Peter and the companion and scribe of St. John the Theologian. With the latter he shared imprisonment on the island of Patmos and recorded the visions of John (Apocalypse). In the miniature from the Khitrovo Gospel “John Dictates to Prokhor” (14th century) there is no content of the record, which opens up room for interpretation, including one that would insist on the recording of the Apocalypse. The words of John: “I was in the spirit on Sunday…” (Rev. 1:10) according to the tradition of Orthodox exegesis means “frenzy, ecstasy, the descent of a certain spiritual charisma onto a person.” V.V. Savchuk notes in this regard: “being in ecstasy, it is impossible to describe it, just as it is impossible to scream and at the same time write down the pain that makes you scream... John's revelations required a voice, speaking; the vital truth of their depiction could not withstand the violence of the monotonous regimentation of writing, the methodical impartiality of its rules. The image of the immediacy of vision-writing in the name of visual truth is overcome by the introduction of an additional figure, endowed with only one function, recording function, leaving John the ability to see and speak" 2 .

If we interpret the creation of the world as a recording of a text, and the state of Wisdom the Artist, her “fun” on the earthly circle, as being “in the spirit,” the question arises: who is the “Author” and who is the “Scribe”? In any case, the figure of the Artist cannot be excluded from those involved in the text of the Apocalypse (God-Christ-Angel-John-Prochorus): associated with the “beginning of the path”, with the creation of the “first text”, she could not ignore the last text. The figure of Prokhor seems to me not so clearly functional, not so mechanistic. Prochorus is John’s companion and scribe, but at the same time he is also a “puppet of God,” a direct executor of His will and role. Prokhor is the last in the earthly “round dance” (cf. προχορεύω - to dance in front, i.e. to lead the dance).

Let me remind you that our topic is “tabula rasa” and another of its spreads is related to the dictionary meanings of the word tabula, among which there is also the meaning table(cf. English table).

1. Ortega y Gasset H. Two great metaphors // Theory of metaphor. M., 1990, p. 68-80.

2. Savchuk V.V. Blood and culture. St. Petersburg, 1995, p. 122.