Leibniz's new essays concerning the human understanding : a critical exposition /
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...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Chicago,
S.C. Griggs and Co.,
1888.
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| Series: | German philosophical classics for English readers and students.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | 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. |
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| Item Description: | "Upon the whole, this book will be found, I hope, to be a faithful reflex not only of Leibniz's thought, but also of his discussions in the "Nouveaux Essais." I have endeavored, in the body of the work, to identify my thought with that of Leibniz as much as possible, to assume his standpoint and method, and, for the most part, to confine express criticism upon his limitations to the final chapter. In particular, I have attempted to bring out the relations of philosophy to the growing science of his times, to state the doctrine of pre-established harmony as he himself meant it, and to give something like consistency and coherency to his doctrine of material existence and of nature. This last task seemed especially to require doing. I have also endeavored to keep in mind, throughout, Leibniz's relations to Locke, and to show the "Nouveaux Essais" as typical of the distinction between characteristic British and German thought"--Preface. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xvii, 272 pages) |
| Format: | Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. |
| ISBN: | 0790537206 9780790537207 9780243687558 0243687559 |