SOURCE: A foreword to An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, by John Locke, edited by Peter H. Nidditch, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1975, pp. vii-xxv.

In the following essay, Nidditch offers an overview of Locke's main objectives in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and considers several reasons why the work continues to be actively studied by philosophers.

Gi; the Ascendancy of The Essay =~ Sthe Ascendancy of The Essay

The Essay has long been recognized as one of the great works of English literature of the seventeenth century, and one of the epoch-making works in the history of philosophy. It has been one of the most repeatedly reprinted, widely disseminated and read, and profoundly influential books of the past three centuries, since its initial publication in December 1689. In particular, it has been and continues to be actively studied by philosophers and students of philosophy the world over; the reasons for...