「ロックと言えばタブラ・ラサ」考 (新宮一成教授 退職記念号)

Abstract

Some people still talk about John Locke's "tabula rasa." In his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, however, he does not actually use the words "tabula rasa." Although Locke did use "rasa tabula" in his 1671 drafts of Essay (John Locke, Drafts for the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Other Philosophical Writings, ed. Peter H. Nidditch and G. A. J. Rogers, vol. 1 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990], Draft A: p. 8, Draft B: p. 128), in the published Essay he used the term "white Paper" (John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding [1690], II. i. 2). Moreover, the phrase "tabula rasa" itself had been used by many people since a long time ago in the relationship with Aristotle's De anima, III. For example, it is found in Albertus Magnus (1200-1280), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274), Henry of Ghent (c. 1217-1293), and others. For these reasons, the phrase "Locke's 'tabula rasa'" is quite misleading.