@laborwage Actually the words "While the mind may be a blank slate in regard to content ...." were a quotation from A Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explaining Book II of the Essay
@pawsoned "Ha ha, I didn't know that the work of an experimental psychologist consists solely of reading. What about experiments, are they gone?" In this video he is commenting on the fact that he has to be well read regarding a given topic 'before' he can comment on it in one of his books. That's the hallmark of being intellectually honest. He wasn't talking about doing research and publishing data in research journals. This program has to do with books; not research papers. Troll...
@pawsoned But still he could do better. E.g. In "The Blank Slate" where he fulminates against Locke's idea of tabula rasa he either deliberately misrepresents Locke or just didn't do his homework. Because Locke didn't write about the brain as Pinker wants us to think LOL
@laborwage Pinker says that the blank slate = the idea that the human mind has no inherent structure and can be inscribed at will by society or ourselves. (Pinker, The Blank Slate, p.11) Please, find me this definition in Locke.
@pawsoned No problem. From Locke's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:" Let us the suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence it has all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience.
While the mind may be a blank slate in regard to content, it is plain that Locke thinks we are born with a variety of faculties to receive and abilities to manipulate or process the content once we acquire it.
@pawsoned It's on page 5 of the Blank Slate, actually, and the reference is at the end of the book. Do you have any quote by Locke to support your claim that he was not an advocate of the Blank Slate? And I'm not saying this to say the he was the most fervent advocate of the blank slate, but he was one of the first formal advocates of it. Also, he may have been more conservative than the later proponents of it, such as Rousseau.
@laborwage Actually the words "While the mind may be a blank slate in regard to content ...." were a quotation from A Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explaining Book II of the Essay
pawsoned 11 months ago
Ha ha, I didn't know that the work of an experimental psychologist consists solely of reading. What about experiments, are they gone?
pawsoned 1 year ago
@pawsoned "Ha ha, I didn't know that the work of an experimental psychologist consists solely of reading. What about experiments, are they gone?" In this video he is commenting on the fact that he has to be well read regarding a given topic 'before' he can comment on it in one of his books. That's the hallmark of being intellectually honest. He wasn't talking about doing research and publishing data in research journals. This program has to do with books; not research papers. Troll...
pillsareyummy 11 months ago
@pawsoned But still he could do better. E.g. In "The Blank Slate" where he fulminates against Locke's idea of tabula rasa he either deliberately misrepresents Locke or just didn't do his homework. Because Locke didn't write about the brain as Pinker wants us to think LOL
pawsoned 11 months ago
@pawsoned What do you see as Pinker's misunderstanding about Locke's idea of Mind?
laborwage 11 months ago
@laborwage Pinker says that the blank slate = the idea that the human mind has no inherent structure and can be inscribed at will by society or ourselves. (Pinker, The Blank Slate, p.11) Please, find me this definition in Locke.
pawsoned 11 months ago
@pawsoned No problem. From Locke's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:" Let us the suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence it has all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience.
laborwage 11 months ago
@laborwage On which page is it?
While the mind may be a blank slate in regard to content, it is plain that Locke thinks we are born with a variety of faculties to receive and abilities to manipulate or process the content once we acquire it.
Ergo, Pinker makes a straw man out of Locke
pawsoned 11 months ago
@pawsoned It's on page 5 of the Blank Slate, actually, and the reference is at the end of the book. Do you have any quote by Locke to support your claim that he was not an advocate of the Blank Slate? And I'm not saying this to say the he was the most fervent advocate of the blank slate, but he was one of the first formal advocates of it. Also, he may have been more conservative than the later proponents of it, such as Rousseau.
laborwage 11 months ago