In this early work, the American philosopher John Dewey offers a critical exposition of Leibniz’s New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding — Leibniz’s chapter-by-chapter response to John Locke’s empiricism. Dewey explains and assesses Leibniz’s rationalist theory of knowledge, innate ideas, and the nature of mind, situating the debate within the broader history of modern philosophy.
This free EPUB edition has been carefully cleaned and formatted for modern e-readers. Both a guide to a difficult text and a window onto Dewey’s own philosophical development, it remains useful to students of Leibniz, of early modern epistemology, and of the empiricist–rationalist dispute.