CONDILLAC, (ETIENNE BONNOT de).

Traité des Sensations, a Madame la Comtesse de Vassé. 2 vols.

London, Chez de Bure l'aîne, 1754. Small 8vo. 2 cont. full mottled calf, richly gilt backs, tome-and titlelabels in leather, gilt. Very slightly rubbed. Fine. 2 halftitles. (2),VI,345;(4),335,(1) pp. Old owners name on titles, 1 leaf with a tear, repaired without loss. A few minor brownspots, fine and clean.

Rare first edition of Condillac's main work.

Condillac's philosophy of science was considered the most authoritative reading of Newtonian methodology. Among many others Lavoicier and other protagonists of the chemical revolution were influenced by his reform of nomenclature, as were and are botanists, zoologists and geometrics by his scientific explanations. His psychological empiricism is now considered the first positivist account of science.

Condillac was one of the greatest French philosophers of the Enlightenment. He was friends with Rousseau and Diderot and was a forerunner in the junction between epistemology and philosophy, which was inspired by Locke and Newton, as the two sciences almost merged into one in this period. "Condillac contibuted to the synthesis more decisively than did any other writer." (D.S.B. III:380).

In this his main and most important work Condillac shows how more complicated functions of the soul arise from the combination and counter-effects of the sensations. According to his highly influential theory, all thought is derived from sense-perception, by placing sensations in a certain order with the help of language and mathematical signs.
His "philosophy of science as language occupies a midpoint in the evolution of scientific epistemology between the empiricism of Locke and the positivism of Comte." (D.S.B. III:380).

Condillac viewed language as the analyst of experience and in this work puts forth his idea that effective knowledge is derived from the mind's ability to invent and manipulate symbols of uniform and determinate significance. He approached all problems genetically and adduced the acquisition of language by regarding a baby.
"(I)n the most comprehensive of his works, the "Traité des sensations", he sets out, faithful to his genetic approach, to trace in principle the process by which a being organized with the capacity of becoming human learns to avail itself of the several senses with which it is provided." (D.S.B. III:381).

Order-nr.: 30807