Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a very long work, and we will be reading only parts of an edition that is already an abridgment. If you are curious about the rest, you can find an HTML version of the full text on the course Moodle site with the portions included in Winkler’s edition highlighted.
The first of the four books of the Essay is primarily an attack on something like the view of innate ideas held by Descartes. The qualification “something like” is necessary because, although Descartes is often an explicit target in the Essay, the vocabulary Locke uses to describe the view he is attacking in bk. I suggests that he may have in mind others as least as much as Descartes.
• The first chapter of book I is Locke’s introduction to the work as a whole. As you read it think how well (or poorly) his description of what he has set out to do would fit what you have seen of the work of Descartes and Leibniz.
• Ch. II is the heart of Locke’s arguments against innate ideas, which are stated as arguments against innate principles that are “speculative” rather than “practical” (i.e., are principles of science or philosophy rather than ethics). You should of course look for his key arguments and think whether you agree. But also notice what Locke has to say about his own views about the source of our ideas (especially, in §15); he will develop these further in book II (which will be the source of the selections we will discuss for the rest of this week).
• The selections from ch. IV continue Locke’s arguments in a somewhat different form. Notice the use Locke makes of “powers nature has bestowed on us” (§22). Given that he does not deny that we have innate abilities, ask yourself how far he is from the view you have seen Leibniz advance in opposition to him (in the preface to the New Essays, pp. 49-53).