In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition (published in 1962), first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading.

An extremely suitable focus for the study of Leibniz's thought and of the traditions of rationalism and empiricism in relation to one another.

New Essays on Human Understanding is a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal by Gottfried Leibniz of John Locke's major work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It was finished in 1704 but Locke's death was the cause alleged by Leibniz to withhold its publication. The book appeared some sixty years later. Like many philosophical works of the time, it is written in dialogue form. The two speakers in the book are Theophilus, who represents the views of Leibniz, and Philalethes, who represents those of Locke. The famous rebuttal to the empiricist thesis about the provenance of ideas appears at the beginning of Book II: "Nothing is in the mind without being first in the senses, except for the mind itself". All of Locke's major arguments against innate ideas are criticized at length by Leibniz, who defends an extreme view of innate cognition, according to which all thoughts and actions of the soul are innate. In addition to his discussion of innate ideas, Leibniz offers penetrating critiques of Locke's views on personal identity, free will, mind-body dualism, language, necessary truth, and Locke's attempted proof of the existence of God.

Includes generous selections from the Essay, topically arranged passages from the replies to Stillingfleet, a chronology, a bibliography, a glossary, and an index based on the entries that Locke himself devised.

The Routledge Guidebook to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding introduces the major themes in Locke's great book and acts as a companion for reading this key work.

Seven essays, from a November 1994 conference in Los Angeles, aspire to stamp out once and for all the notion that Kant solved the problem of skepticism. Commemorating C. F. Staudlin, the first historian of skepticism (1794), they document the continuing vitality of a skeptical tradition in Germany, France, and Britain. They consider the role of skepticism in pure philosophy itself, but also in politics; science; and social issues such as smallpox inoculation, suicide, and capital punishment. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A highly influential work in the history of philosophy of mind and language.

Volume five of a ten volume set which provides full and detailed coverage of all aspects of philosophy, including information on how philosophy is practiced in different countries, who the most influential philosophers were, and what the basic concepts are.

This volume offers a reappraisal of a classic text of European philosophy, Leibniz's 'Theodicy'. New essays from leading scholars open a window on the historical context of the work and give close attention to its subtle and enduring philosophical arguments.