Tabula Rasa

Tabula Rasa

Select one topic from the list below and post a grammatically correct short response (minimum of 250 words) in your own words that fully addresses the question(s) asked.

1. Make a case for Descartes’ proposition, “I think, therefore I am.” Now make an equally convincing case against this proposition.
2. Identify and explain the nature of each of Bacon’s “four Idols” from his Novum Organum (Reading 23.1). How does the notion of an “idol” serve Bacon’s main purpose in writing this treatise?
3. See Figure 23.10, Jan Vermeer, View of Delft. How is the artist’s fascination with light reflected in this painting? Do you find Baroque elements in the picture? Describe and explain using details from this chapter.
4. According to Locke, the human mind at birth is a tabula rasa. What did he mean by this?
5. What is genre painting? How did Dutch painting reflect the influence of “the new science”?

……………Answer Preview………………

John Locke is a great philosopher who is widely known as the father of liberalism.  He was the pioneer in his main views concerning the works of the mind as well as self. As a matter of fact, he was the first philosopher to postulate that individuals mind is a tabula rasa or the blank state. The term Tabula rasa usually means a blank state which refers to the state of something way before being affected by the outside influences. For instance, the mind of a newborn baby is compared to a tabula rasa that can be shaped into whatever you would like that child to be. That is why a child end up becoming a teacher, others doctor and even preache…

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