Condillac, Etienne Bonno de

Condillac has undoubted historical significance, since it represents a special moment in the sensualistic theory of knowledge . K. is of particular importance for French philosophy: he first had a number of followers, and later French philosophy was determined by criticism of the main provisions of Condillac. The influence of Condillac on modern English empiricism is also great. Condillac wrote few philosophical works: “Essai sur l'Origine des Connaissances humaines” (“An Experience on the Origin of Human Knowledge”, 1746); Traité des Systèmes (A Treatise on Systems, 1749); Traité des Sensations (Treatise on Feelings, 1754) and Traité des animaux (Treatise on Animals, 1755). Shortly before his death, his logic appeared, and his La langue des Calculs (Language of Calculus) was published after his death. Having received an invitation to become the educator of the grandson of Louis XV - the infant of Don Ferdinand, Condillac wrote a sixteen-volume work, "A Course in Teaching the Prince of Parma," which contains extensive information on linguistics, literature, rhetoric, and the history of philosophy.

In the last years of his life, he worked on the economic essay Trade and Government, Considered in Their Mutual Relationship.

Nikolai Bukharin noted that Condillac in his ideas anticipated a number of provisions of the Austrian economic school :

Condillac strongly emphasizes the “subjective” nature of value, which he does not have as a social law of prices, but as an individual judgment based on utility (“utilité”) on the one hand and on rarity (“rareté”) on the other. The same author came so close to the “modern” formulation of the question that he even made a distinction between “present” and “future” needs (“besoin présent et besoin éloigné”) 2), a distinction that is known to play a major role in the transition from the theory of value to the theory of profit from the chief representative of the "Austrians" - Böhm-Bawerk.

- Nikolai Bukharin , “Political Economy of the Rentier” ^[5]

Condillac's fame is mainly based on his Traité des Sensations. The first two works were written under the influence of Locke . From Locke's point of view, he criticizes the philosophical systems of Malbranche , Spinoza and Leibniz . However, the treatise on logic was extremely popular in the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. ^[6]

Reading the works of Berkeley , and partly the influence of encyclopedists, forced Condillac to make significant changes to Locke's theory of knowledge. “Traité des Sensations” has undoubted psychological significance; in psychology, Condillac is an innovator, and the doctrine of the emergence of spatial patterns, which is one of the most developed chapters in modern psychology, should in Condillac recognize its ancestor.

Locke, according to Condillac, is mistaken in admitting a twofold source of knowledge - sensations and reflection. Reflection does not represent anything independent, but there is a processed sensation; from the senses the memory is also composed; the multiplicity of sensations by itself causes judgment. Condillac, thus, not only describes various spiritual phenomena, but also gives the story of the development of the soul.

When depicting this story, he proceeds from a purely a priori construction - a living statue, but not spiritualized, which he gradually endows with various abilities of sensations and from them draws various groups of concepts. Condillac believes that he adheres to the empirical method, while he acts in exactly the same way as rational philosophers in the XVIII century, that is, he builds facts.

Sensations Condillac divides into two groups: on the one hand - smell, sight, hearing and taste, on the other - touch. The analysis of touch and the importance that he attached to this category of sensations is the undoubted merit of Condillac to psychology. . In the knowledge of the outside world, touch plays a leading role. Just as Condillac deduces all knowledge of the outside world from sensations, he also derives purely subjective states from the same source. One cannot refuse some grandeur to the simplicity of this construction of mental life.

The French rank Condillac among the classical writers; reading the three books of his Traité des Sensations is part of their elementary philosophical teaching .

Discussing the idea of ​​numbers, Etienne Bonno de Condillac gives ^{[7] the} following example. The French surveyor and traveler, a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, Charles Marie de la Condamine, in his book "A Short Story of a Journey Deep in South America from the Shore of the South Sea to the Shores of Brazil and Guiana, Down the Amazon River", published in 1745, reports ^[8] that the Yameo tribe (South America) has the number 3 pronounced Pellarrarorincouraq ( poellarrarorincourac ). According to Condillac, such an unsuccessful name of the number three served as an obstacle to the implementation of simple arithmetic operations and, as a result, the inability of the tribe to create the idea of ​​numbers exceeding the number of fingers.

On July 25 [1743], passing the mouth of the Tigre River, Kondamin arrived in the newly created settlement of the Yameo Indians, under the influence of missionaries who had recently moved there from the forests. The language of these Indians was very difficult, and the pronunciation was completely unusual. Some words consisted of nine to ten syllables, and only up to three were able to count yameos. (Jules Verne, The History of the Great Journeys) ^[9] .

• 1785 - “The Logic of the Abbot Condillac”
• 1805 - “Logic, or Mental Science, Leading to the Truth”
• 1935 - A Treatise on Feelings
• 1938 - A Treatise on Systems
• 1980-1983 - “Works in three volumes”

• Condillac E. B. Compositions in 3 volumes / Per. with fr .; total ed. and note. V. M. Boguslavsky. - M.: Thought, 1980-1983. - Series "Philosophical Heritage".
• Biryukova N.B. The principle of identity in the logic of E.B. de Condillac // XI International Conference: Logic. Methodology. Philosophy of Science. M .: Obninsk, 1995.
• Krotov A.A. From the history of the philosophy of education of the Enlightenment: Condillac and Destut de Tracy // Philosophical Sciences. 2014. No. 9. P. 129-140.
• Aliènor Bertrand, Vocabulaire de Condillac, Paris, Ellipses, 2003.
• Orain, Arnaud. "Directing or Reforming Behaviors? A Discussion of Condillac's Theory of 'Vrai Prix'." History of Political Economy 2006 38 (3): 497-530.
• Nicolas Rousseau , Connaissance et langage chez Condillac, Genève, Droz, 1987.
• Hine, Ellen McNiven (1979). A Critical Study of Condillac's Traité des Systèmes. Dordrecht: Springer. ISBN 978-94-009-9291-7 .
• Knight, Isabel F. (1968). The Geometric Spirit: The Abbe de Condillac and the French Enlightenment. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Léon Dewaule . Condillac et la psychologie anglaise contemporaine. - P., 1892.
• Condillac, Etienne-Bonnot // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.