Test on the human understanding

The Test on the human understanding , Year Essay Concerning Human Understanding in English, is a philosophical work of the philosopher empirist English John Locke, published in December 1689.

The Essai on the human understanding treats bases of human knowledge and understanding. It describes the spirit with the birth like a clean slate then filled out by the experiment. Constituting one of the independent sources of the Empiricism in modern philosophy, the Essai influenced many philosophers of the Lumières, such as Hume and Berkeley.

The number of the editions (1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706) testifies to immediate success to this work which will be published in French as of 1700 and will be republished in 1729.

Reaction, answer and influence

The empirist point of view of of Locke was highly criticized by the rationalist . In 1704, Leibniz opposed to him the rationalist point of view in the Nouveaux Tests on the human understanding , where he refutes it chapter by chapter. At the same time, the Essais on the human understanding provided the crucial bottom for the work of the future philosophers empirists like Hume.

Repercussions

This work played a crucial role in the diffusion of philosophy empirist in France, at the point to make neglect future work of Hume in which, its time, France will want to see only the historian defender of the monarchy of the Histoire of Great Britain .

External bonds

John Locke on the Project Gutenberg
a pdf of an edition of 1824 of work of Locke

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