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See also:ETIENNE BONNOT DE See also:CONDILLAC (1715—178o)
, See also:French philosopher, was See also:born at See also:Grenoble of a legal See also:family on the 30th of See also:September 1715, and, like his See also:elder See also:brother, the well-known See also:political writer, See also:abbe de Mably, took See also:holy orders and became abbe de Mureau.' In both cases the profession was hardly more than nominal, and See also:Condillac's whole See also:life, with the exception of an See also:interval as See also:tutor at the See also:court of See also:Parma, was devoted to See also:speculation
.
His See also:works are Essai sur l'origine See also:des connaissances humaines (1746), Traite des systemes (1749), Tyaite des sensations (I 754), Traite des animaux (1755) , a comprehensive Cours d'etudes (1767—1773) in 13 vols., written for the See also:young See also:Duke See also: He had been led, he tells us, partly by the criticism of a talented See also:lady, Mademoiselle See also:Ferrand, to question Locke's See also:doctrine that the senses give us intuitive knowledge of See also:objects, that the See also:eye, for example, See also:judges naturally of shapes, sizes, positions and distances . His discussions with the lady had convinced him that to clear up such questions it was necessary to study our senses separately, to distinguish precisely what ideas we owe to each sense, to observe how the senses are trained, and how one sense See also:aids another . The result, he was confident, would show that all human faculty and knowledge are transformed sensation only, to the exclusion of any other principle, such as reflection . The See also:plan of the book is that the author imagines a statue organized inwardly like a See also:man, animated by a soul which has never received an See also:idea, into which no sense-impression has ever penetrated . He then unlocks its senses one by one, beginning with See also:smell, as the sense that contributes least to human knowledge . At its first experience of smell, the consciousness of the statue is entirely occupied by it; and this occupancy of consciousness is See also:attention . The statue's smell-experience will produce See also:pleasure or See also:pain; and pleasure and pain will thenceforward be the master-principle which, determining all the operations of its mind, will raise it by degrees to all the knowledge of which it is capable . The next See also:stage is memory, which is the lingering impression of the smell-experience upon the attention: " memory is nothing more than a mode of feeling." From memory springs comparison: the statue experiences the smell, say, of a See also:rose, while remembering that of a See also:carnation; and " comparison is nothing more than giving one's attention to two things simultaneously." And " as soon as the statue has comparison it has See also:judgment." Comparisons and judgments become habitual, are stored in the mind and formed into See also:series, and thus arises the powerful principle of the association of ideas . From comparison of past and See also:present experiences in respect of their 'pleasure-giving quality arises See also:desire; it is desire that determines the operation of our faculties, stimulates the memory and See also:imagination, and gives rise to the passions . The passions, also, are nothing but sensation trans-formed . These indications will suffice to show the See also:general course of the See also:argument in the first See also:section of the Traite des sensations . To show the thoroughness of the treatment it will be enough to quote the headings of the See also:chief remaining chapters: " Of the Ideas of a Man limited to the Sense of Smell," " Of a Man limited to the Sense of See also:Hearing," " Of Smell and Hearing combined," " Of See also:Taste by itself, and of Taste combined with Smell and Hearing," " Of a Man limited to the Sense of Sight." In the second section of the See also:treatise Condillac invests his statue with the sense of See also:touch, which first informs it of the existence of See also:external objects .
In a very careful and elaborate analysis, he distinguishes the various elements in our tactile experiences—the touching of one's own See also:body, the touching of objects other than one's own body, the experience of See also:movement, the exploration of surfaces by the hands: he traces the growth of the statue's perceptions of See also:extension, distance and shape
.
The third section deals with the See also:combination of touch with the other senses
.
The See also:fourth section deals with the desires, activities and ideas of an isolated man who enjoys See also:possession of all the senses; and ends with observations on a " See also:wild boy " who was found living among bears in the forests of Lithuania
.
The conclusion of the whole See also:work is that in the natural order of things everything has its source in sensation, and yet that this source is not equally abundant in all men; men differ greatly in the degree of vividness with which they feel; and, finally, that man is nothing but what he has acquired; all innate faculties and ideas are to be swept away: The last dictum suggests the difference that has been made to this manner of psychologizing by See also:modern theories of See also:evolution and See also:heredity
.
Condillac's work on politics and See also:history, contained, for the most part, in his Cours d'etudes, offers few features of See also:interest, except so far as it illustrates his close See also:affinity to English thought: he had not the warmth and imagination to make a See also:good historian
.
In See also:logic, on which he wrote extensively, he is far less successful than in psychology
.
He enlarges with much iteration, but with few See also:concrete examples, upon the supremacy of the See also:analytic method; argues that reasoning consists in the substitution of one proposition for another which is identical with it; and See also:lays it down that See also:science is the same thing as a well-constructed See also:language, a proposition which in his Langue des calculs he tries to prove by the example of See also:arithmetic
.
His logic has in fact the good and See also:bad points that we might expect to find in a sensationist who knows no science but See also:mathematics
.
He rejects the See also:medieval apparatus of the See also:syllogism; but is precluded by his standpoint from understanding the active, spiritual See also:character of thought; nor had he that interest in natural science and appreciation of inductive reasoning which See also:form the chief merit of J
.
S
.
See also: There is, however, no See also:reason to question the sincerity with which he repudiates both these consequences . What he says upon See also:religion is always in harmony with his profession; and he vindicated the freedom of the will in a dissertation that has very little in See also:common with the Traite des sensations to which it is appended . The common reproach of See also:materialism should certainly not be made against him . He always asserts the substantive reality of the soul; and in the opening words of his Essai, " Whether we rise to See also:heaven, or descend to the See also:abyss, we never get outside ourselves—it is always our own thoughts that we perceive, we have the subjectivist principle that forms the starting-point of See also:Berkeley . As was fitting to a See also:disciple of Locke, Condillac's ideas have had most importance in their effect upon English thought . In matters connected with the association of ideas, the supremacy of pleasure and pain, and the general explanation of all See also:mental contents as sensations or transformed sensations, his See also:influence can be traced upon the See also:Mills and upon See also:Bain and See also:Herbert See also:Spencer . And, apart from any definite propositions, Condillac did a notable work in the direction of making psychology a science; it is a See also:great step from the desultory, genial observation of Locke to the rigorous analysis of Condillac, See also:short-sighted and defective as that analysis may seem to us in the See also:light of See also:fuller knowledge . at See also:Lyons . Thanks to his natural caution and reserve, Condillac's relations with unorthodox philosophers did not injure his career; and he justified abundantly the choice of the French court in sending him to Parma to educate the See also:orphan duke, then a See also:child of seven years . In 1768, on his return from See also:Italy, he was elected to the French See also:Academy, but attended no See also:meeting after his reception . He spent his later years in retirement at See also:Flux, a small See also:property which he had See also:purchased near See also:Beaugency, and died there on the 3rd of See also:August 1780 . His method, however, of imaginative reconstruction was by no means suited to English ways of thinking .
In spite of his protests against See also:abstraction, See also:hypothesis and See also:synthesis, his See also:allegory of the statue is in the highest degree abstract, hypothetical and synthetic
.
See also: Consult also F . Rethore, Condillac ou l'empirisme et le rationalisme (1864); L . Dewaule, Condillac et la psychologie anglaise contemporaine (1891) ; histories of See also:philosophy . (H . |
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