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Full Idea
The intellect is in a way potentially the object of thought, but nothing in actuality before it thinks, and the potentiality is like that of the tablet on which there is nothing actually written.
Gist of Idea
The intellect has potential to think, like a tablet on which nothing has yet been written
Source
Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 429b31)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'De Anima (On the Soul)', ed/tr. Lawson-Tancred,H.C. [Penguin 1986], p.203
A Reaction
This passage is referred to by Leibniz, and is the origin of the concept of the 'tabula rasa'. Aristotle need not be denying innate ideas, but merely describing the phenomenology of the moment before a train of thought begins.
| 5051 | The intellect has potential to think, like a tablet on which nothing has yet been written [Aristotle] |
| 20803 | Stoics say we are born like a blank sheet of paper; the first concepts on it are sensations [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch] |
| 6025 | At birth the soul is a blank sheet ready to be written on [Stoic school, by Aetius] |
| 6230 | If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice [Cudworth] |
| 7723 | The senses first let in particular ideas, which furnish the empty cabinet [Locke] |
| 7507 | The mind is white paper, with no writing, or ideas [Locke] |
| 12474 | The mind is a blank page, on which only experience can write [Locke] |
| 12940 | What is left of the 'blank page' if you remove the ideas? [Leibniz] |