Editing Tabula rasa (section)

=== Ancient Greek philosophy ===
In [[Western philosophy]], the concept of ''tabula rasa'' can be traced back to the writings of [[Aristotle]] who writes in his treatise ''[[On the Soul|De Anima]]'' ({{Langx|grc|Περί Ψυχῆς|label=none|lit=''On the Soul''}}) of the "unscribed tablet." In one of the more well-known passages of this treatise, he writes that:<ref>Aristotle, ''De Anima'', 429b29–430a1</ref>
<blockquote>Haven't we already disposed of the difficulty about interaction involving a common element, when we said that mind is in a sense potentially whatever is thinkable, though actually it is nothing until it has thought? What it thinks must be in it just as characters may be said to be on a writing tablet on which as yet nothing stands written: this is exactly what happens with mind.</blockquote> 
This idea was further evolved in [[Ancient Greek philosophy]] by the [[stoicism|Stoic]] school. Stoic epistemology emphasizes that the mind starts blank, but acquires knowledge as the outside world is impressed upon it.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bardzell |first=Jeffrey |title=Speculative Grammar and Stoic Language Theory in Medieval Allegorical Narrative: From Prudentius to Alan of Lille |date=11 June 2014 |publisher=Routledge |pages=18–9}}</ref> The [[Doxography|doxographer]] [[Aetius (philosopher)|Aetius]] summarizes this view as "When a man is born, the Stoics say, he has the commanding part of his soul like a sheet of paper ready for writing upon."<ref>[[Hermann Alexander Diels|Diels, Hermann Alexander]], and [[Walther Kranz]], 4.11, as cited in [[A. A. Long|Long, A. A.]], and [[David Sedley|David N. Sedley]]. 1987. "Stoicism." Pp. 163–431 in ''The Hellenistic Philosophers'' 1. Cambridge, MA: [[Cambridge University Press]]. {{doi|10.1017/CBO9781139165907.004}}. p. 238.</ref> [[Diogenes Laërtius]] attributes a similar belief to the Stoic [[Zeno of Citium]] when he writes in ''[[Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers]]'' that:<ref>[[Diogenes Laërtius]], vii. 43-46</ref> 
<blockquote>Perception, again, is an impression produced on the mind, its name being appropriately borrowed from impressions on wax made by a seal; and perception they divide into comprehensible and incomprehensible: Comprehensible, which they call the criterion of facts, and which is produced by a real object, and is, therefore, at the same time conformable to that object; Incomprehensible, which has no relation to any real object, or else, if it has any such relation, does not correspond to it, being but a vague and indistinct representation.</blockquote>