Published in 1689, Locke's Essay on Human Understanding completed the reconfiguration of the philosophical landscape of modernity. Philosophy now has the task no longer of increasing our knowledge of things, but of analyzing their materials - the ideas - and providing criticism. She sees in man a being dedicated to sensation, desire and anxiety, who can no longer rely on the resources of innateness or divine inspiration. Hence the provocative question which underlies the work and gives it its complete relevance: how to make rationality, moral responsibility, or religious belief thinkable and possible?