Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding
1690
John Locke published a long meditation arguing that the human mind begins as a blank slate and derives all knowledge from experience. Innate ideas, Locke insisted, did not exist. The book became the founding text of British empiricism and shaped Enlightenment education, psychology, and political theory, giving philosophers a new framework for understanding how humans come to know the world.
In context
Also in 1690 (3 other events on record)
- Battle of the Boyne · Europe · War
- Job Charnock Founds Calcutta · South Asia · Politics
- Denis Papin Builds a Piston Engine · Europe · Technology
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Science
- Before: 1687: Acqua Alta in Venice
- After: 1693: French Famine
Era
Enlightenment (1651–1800), one of 696 events from that era on Saeculum.