An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

John Locke's (1632-1704) reputation as an English philosopher in the history of Western thought rests above all on his "An Essay concerning Humane Understanding".

In this, the founding document of British Empiricism, Locke attempted a complete account of human knowledge, its origin, scope and limits.

He attacked the long-held Rationalist doctrine of innate ideas and argued instead for the primacy of sense experience: the mind at birth is a "tabula rasa" - a receptive blank slate on which all knowledge is inscribed by experience.

The "Essay" had a very profound impact on 18th-century thought, from Berkeley and Hume in Britain to Voltaire and many others on the European mainland.

By 1800 it had been issued in 56 different editions and translations, not counting abridgements.

Thoemmes Press here presents a large-format facsimile edition of the 1st edition which was published in 1690.

The first issue of the first edition affords scholars the chance to read Locke's text in the precise version that confronted his earliest readers in 1690. And the fifth edition (1706) contains expansions to all four books, as well as excerpts from Locke's important Letters to and from Bishop Edward Stillingfleet - changes anticipated in a codicil to Locke's will.