The Blank Slate
E37506
The Blank Slate is a book by Steven Pinker that critiques the notion of human minds as entirely shaped by environment and argues for the significant role of innate human nature, making it a foundational text in evolutionary psychology debates.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Blank Slate canonical | 4 |
| The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T289456 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Blank Slate Context triple: [evolutionary psychology, hasKeyText, The Blank Slate]
-
A.
One-Dimensional Man
One-Dimensional Man is a 1964 philosophical critique by Herbert Marcuse that analyzes how advanced industrial societies create conformist, "one-dimensional" thinking that undermines genuine freedom and critical consciousness.
-
B.
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge is a 1998 book by biologist Edward O. Wilson that argues for the unification of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities into a single, coherent framework of knowledge.
-
C.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Guns, Germs, and Steel is a widely influential book by Jared Diamond that explores how geography, environment, and the distribution of domesticable plants and animals shaped the unequal development of human societies.
-
D.
The Dragons of Eden
The Dragons of Eden is a Pulitzer Prize–winning 1977 book by Carl Sagan that explores the evolution of human intelligence and the brain through a blend of science, anthropology, and speculative thought.
-
E.
On Human Nature
On Human Nature is a landmark 1978 book by biologist Edward O. Wilson that explores the biological and evolutionary foundations of human behavior and won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Blank Slate Target entity description: The Blank Slate is a book by Steven Pinker that critiques the notion of human minds as entirely shaped by environment and argues for the significant role of innate human nature, making it a foundational text in evolutionary psychology debates.
-
A.
One-Dimensional Man
One-Dimensional Man is a 1964 philosophical critique by Herbert Marcuse that analyzes how advanced industrial societies create conformist, "one-dimensional" thinking that undermines genuine freedom and critical consciousness.
-
B.
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge is a 1998 book by biologist Edward O. Wilson that argues for the unification of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities into a single, coherent framework of knowledge.
-
C.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Guns, Germs, and Steel is a widely influential book by Jared Diamond that explores how geography, environment, and the distribution of domesticable plants and animals shaped the unequal development of human societies.
-
D.
The Dragons of Eden
The Dragons of Eden is a Pulitzer Prize–winning 1977 book by Carl Sagan that explores the evolution of human intelligence and the brain through a blend of science, anthropology, and speculative thought.
-
E.
On Human Nature
On Human Nature is a landmark 1978 book by biologist Edward O. Wilson that explores the biological and evolutionary foundations of human behavior and won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
non-fiction book ⓘ popular science book ⓘ |
| author | Steven Pinker ⓘ |
| awards | Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology ⓘ |
| centralClaim |
denial of human nature has political and moral consequences
ⓘ
environmental and cultural factors interact with innate human nature ⓘ human nature is not a blank slate and includes innate predispositions ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| critiques |
blank slate view of the mind
ⓘ
extreme social constructivism ⓘ nurture-only theories of human behavior ⓘ |
| fullTitle |
The Blank Slate
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
|
| genre |
cognitive science
ⓘ
evolutionary psychology ⓘ philosophy of mind ⓘ political philosophy ⓘ psychology ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 978-0-670-03151-1 ⓘ |
| hasPart |
discussion of the blank slate doctrine
ⓘ
discussion of the ghost in the machine doctrine ⓘ discussion of the noble savage doctrine ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
art and aesthetics
ⓘ
behavioral genetics ⓘ blank slate theory ⓘ cognitive science ⓘ evolutionary psychology ⓘ feminism ⓘ human nature ⓘ moral philosophy ⓘ nature versus nurture ⓘ political ideology ⓘ social constructivism ⓘ violence and aggression ⓘ |
| influenced |
debates in evolutionary psychology
ⓘ
discussions of human nature in philosophy ⓘ public discourse on nature versus nurture ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Charles Darwin
ⓘ
behavioral genetics ⓘ cognitive psychology ⓘ evolutionary theory ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| notableFor |
linking scientific views of human nature to politics and morality
ⓘ
popularizing scientific arguments against the blank slate view ⓘ |
| pageCount | approximately 500 ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2002 ⓘ |
| publisher |
The Viking Press
ⓘ
surface form:
Viking Press
|
| supports |
behavioral genetic evidence for heritability of traits
ⓘ
evolutionary explanations of human behavior ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Blank Slate Description of subject: The Blank Slate is a book by Steven Pinker that critiques the notion of human minds as entirely shaped by environment and argues for the significant role of innate human nature, making it a foundational text in evolutionary psychology debates.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature