The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, Allen Lane/The Penguin Press, £25, ISBN 0713992565 Reviewed by Simon Blackburn
THE blank slate of Steven Pinker’s title is the “white paper void of all characters, without any ideas” to which philosopher John Locke compares the original state of the mind, as it passively waits for experience to provide it with the materials of thought and knowledge. Pinker believes that this bad idea infuses a whole cocktail of practical mistakes. To oppose it he mobilises the most modern of sciences.
The Blank Slate is brilliant in several dimensions. It is enjoyable, informative, clear, humane and sensible. But is the breathless deference to the new sciences of the mind and brain appropriate? If we read carefully, the contributions of evolutionary theory, psychology or neuroscience appear to be either little or controversial.
