New Essays on Human Understanding

New Essays on Human Understanding (French: Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain) is a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal by Gottfried Leibniz of John Locke's major work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It is one of only two full-length works by Leibniz (the other being the Theodicy). 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.^[1] Like many philosophical works of the time, it is written in dialogue form.

Overview

The two speakers in the book are Theophilus ("loving God" in Greek),^[2] who represents the views of Leibniz, and Philalethes ("loving truth" in Greek),^[3] 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".^[4] 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.^[5] 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.

Editions

• New Essays on Human Understanding, 2nd ed. Translated and edited by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-521-57660-1.

See also

• Implicit cognition

References

1. Oeuvres philosophiques, latines et françoises, de feu Mr. de Leibnitz, tirées de ses manuscrits, qui se conservent dans la bibliothèque royale à Hanovre, et publiees par Rud. Eric Raspe, Amsterdam et Leipzig, 1765.
2. "θεόφιλος". LSJ.
3. "φιλαλήθης". LSJ.
4. Book II, Ch. 1, §2: "Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu excipe: nisi ipse intellectus".
5. G. W. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding. Translated and edited by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 74.

Sources

• Leibniz, Akademie-Ausgabe (1999): Vol. VI, 6

External links

•  French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain
• New Essays on Human Understanding Langley translation 1896
• John Dewey, Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding – A Critical Exposition, 1888
• The New Essays, slightly modified for easier reading