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The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature is a best-selling 2002 book by the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, in which the author makes a case against tabula rasa models in the social sciences, arguing that human behavior is substantially shaped by evolutionary psychological adaptations.
The notion is central to Lockean empiricism; it serves as the starting point for Locke's subsequent explication (in Book II) of simple ideas and complex ideas. As understood by Locke, tabula rasa meant that the mind of the individual was born blank, and it also emphasized the freedom of individuals to author their own soul. Individuals are free ...
He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate (tabula rasa, although he did not use those actual words) filled later through experience. The essay was one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley.
The descriptive writer's task is one of translation: he wants to find words to capture the way his five senses have registered the item, so a reader of those words will have a mental picture of it. [10] Essays whose governing intent is descriptive or narrative are relatively uncommon in college writing. Exposition and argument tend to prevail. [11]
Pinker in 2011. Pinker's research on visual cognition, begun in collaboration with his thesis adviser, Stephen Kosslyn, showed that mental images represent scenes and objects as they appear from a specific vantage point (rather than capturing their intrinsic three-dimensional structure), and thus correspond to the neuroscientist David Marr's theory of a "two-and-a-half-dimensional sketch."
Definitional retreat – changing the meaning of a word when an objection is raised. [23] Often paired with moving the goalposts (see below), as when an argument is challenged using a common definition of a term in the argument, and the arguer presents a different definition of the term and thereby demands different evidence to debunk the argument.
Blank slate is the epistemological thesis that individual human beings are born with no built-in mental content. Blank slate may also refer to: "Blank Slate" (The Outer Limits), a 1999 television episode; The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, a 2002 psychology book; Blank Slate, a 2005 manga written and illustrated by Aya Kanno
Persuasive writing is a form of written arguments designed to convince, motivate, or sway readers toward a specific point of view or opinion on a given topic. This writing style relies on presenting reasoned opinions supported by evidence that substantiates the central thesis .