The Blank Slate

Pinker, the author of the book, is a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and he has studied the development of language. His work addresses the mind and human nature, and he challenges both the political left and the political right in his writing. He believes that social scientists have to reconsider their long-held beliefs, such as their belief that people are born as blank slates, to incorporate findings from the fields of biology, neuroscience, and related fields. His work examines why thinkers, and the public at large, are resistant to changing their long-held belief in the Blank Slate and suggests that our discoveries about human nature can lead to more equality between people. 

An Enlightenment-era philosopher who helped develop the political theory of the social contract, Hobbes’s ideas were partly based on his conception of a “state of nature,” which was a time before humans organized in societies. In this state of nature, people’s lives were extremely difficult; Hobbes described them as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (7). Government, society, and civilization were responses that moved humanity out of the state of nature. This decision was made purely out of self-interest. Humans decided to submit to a political authority that could protect them because they believed their lives would be better.