Étienne Bonnot de Condillac facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
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Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
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| Born | 30 September 1714 |
| Died | 2 August 1780 (aged 65) Lailly-en-Val, Kingdom of France
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| Era | Modern philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy
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| School | Empiricism |
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Main interests
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Psychology, philosophy of mind, epistemology |
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Influences
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Influenced
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Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (30 September 1714 – 2 or 3 August 1780) was an important French philosopher and Catholic priest. He studied how we gain knowledge (this is called epistemology). He also explored how our minds work and how we think.
Contents
Biography
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac was born in Grenoble, France. His family worked in law. He was the youngest of three brothers. His older brothers, Jean and Gabriel, used the name "Bonnot de Mably" from a family property. Étienne chose the name "Bonnot de Condillac" from another property.
Like his brother Gabriel, Condillac became a priest between 1733 and 1740. He was appointed as the Abbot of Mureau.
Condillac spent most of his life thinking deeply about ideas. For a time, he worked as a tutor for the young Duke Ferdinand of Parma. The Duke was a grandson of King Louis XV of France.
Condillac wrote many books. Some of his most famous works include:
- Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines (1746)
- Traité des systèmes (1749)
- Traité des sensations (1754)
- Traité des animaux (1755)
- A large collection called Cours d'études (1767–1773), written for the Duke of Parma.
- Le Commerce et le gouvernement, considérés relativement l'un a l'autre (1776)
- Two books published after his death: Logique (1781) and Langue des calculs (1798).
In Paris, Condillac was part of a group of thinkers. This group included Denis Diderot, who helped create the famous Encyclopédie. Condillac also became good friends with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This friendship lasted for most of their lives.
Condillac's friendships with these thinkers did not harm his career. After publishing several books, the French court sent him to Parma. His job was to teach the young duke, who was only seven years old.
After returning from Italy, Condillac was chosen to join the Académie française in 1768. This is a very important French institution. He attended meetings regularly until two years before he died. He spent his final years living quietly at Flux, a property he bought near Beaugency. He passed away there on August 2 or 3, 1780.
Condillac's Ideas on How We Learn
Condillac was important for two main reasons. First, he was a key figure in psychology. Second, he helped spread the ideas of the English philosopher John Locke in France. Locke believed that all our knowledge comes from our experiences. Condillac built on these ideas. He showed how clear, short, and logical thinking could be.
The Origin of Knowledge
Condillac's first book, Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines, was very similar to Locke's ideas. He agreed that we get knowledge from two sources: our senses (like sight and touch) and our reflections (thinking about our experiences). He also used the idea that our thoughts become connected, which is called the "association of ideas."
Critiquing Other Systems
In his next book, Traité des systèmes, Condillac strongly criticized other philosophical ideas. He argued against systems that were based on abstract rules or weak guesses. He disagreed with the idea that we are born with certain ideas already in our minds. He also questioned complex theories about how the mind works or what things are made of.
The Statue Experiment
Condillac's most important work is Traité des sensations (Treatise on Sensations). In this book, he explored how our senses give us knowledge. He disagreed with Locke's idea that our senses automatically understand objects. For example, he thought the eye doesn't naturally know shapes or distances.
Condillac believed we needed to study each sense separately. He wanted to understand exactly what ideas each sense gives us. He also looked at how our senses learn and how they help each other. His main idea was that all human abilities and knowledge come only from our sensations. He believed that reflection (thinking) is just a transformed sensation.
To explain this, Condillac imagined a statue. This statue was built like a human but had never experienced anything. It had no ideas or sense impressions. He then "unlocked" its senses one by one.
He started with the sense of smell. When the statue first smelled something, its mind was completely focused on it. This focus was "attention." The smell would cause pleasure or pain. This pleasure or pain would then guide all of its mental actions. It would slowly lead the statue to gain all the knowledge it could.
The next step was "memory." This was the lingering feeling of the smell experience. Condillac said, "memory is nothing more than a mode of feeling." From memory came "comparison." The statue might smell a rose while remembering the smell of a carnation. Condillac explained, "comparison is nothing more than giving one's attention to two things simultaneously."
As soon as the statue could compare, it could also "judge." Comparisons and judgments became habits. They were stored in the mind and formed connections. This led to the powerful idea of "association of ideas."
From comparing past and present experiences (and how much pleasure they gave), "desire" arose. Desire then guided how our minds work. It made memory and imagination stronger. It also led to our "passions" (strong emotions). Condillac believed that passions were also just transformed sensations.
Condillac continued this idea through his book. He explored what a person would know if they only had the sense of smell, then only hearing, then both combined. He then added taste and sight.
In the second part of the book, Condillac gave his statue the sense of touch. This sense, he argued, was the first to tell the statue that outside objects exist. He carefully explained how we learn about size, distance, and shape through touch. The third part combined touch with the other senses. The fourth part looked at a person who had all senses but was isolated. It ended with observations about a "wild boy" found living with bears.
Condillac concluded that everything we know comes from our senses. However, he noted that not everyone feels things with the same intensity. He also believed that humans are only what they have learned. He argued that we are not born with any special abilities or ideas.
Logic and Thought
Condillac also wrote about logic, which is the study of correct reasoning. He believed that reasoning was like replacing one idea with another that was exactly the same. He thought that science was like a well-made language. He tried to prove this using arithmetic as an example.
Condillac's ideas on logic were limited because he focused so much on sensations. He didn't fully understand the active part of thinking. He also didn't have a strong interest in natural science.
Some people might think Condillac's ideas could lead to atheism (not believing in God) or determinism (the idea that everything is decided for us). However, Condillac disagreed with these ideas. He always wrote about religion in a way that fit his role as a priest. He also defended the idea of free will. He believed that the soul was real. He started his Essai by saying, "Whether we rise to heaven, or descend to the abyss, we never get outside ourselves—it is always our own thoughts that we perceive." This shows his belief that our experiences are always our own.
Language
Condillac believed that language was how our senses and emotions turned into higher mental abilities. He thought that the way a language is built shows how our thoughts are built. He compared ideas to the sounds of a harpsichord. His ideas greatly influenced the study of linguistics (the science of language).
Condillac promoted "sensationalism." This theory states that all knowledge comes from our senses. It also says that we are not born with any ideas already in our minds. Condillac's ideas about how language was created were similar to those of the later German thinker Johann Gottfried Herder.
Economics
Condillac's book Le Commerce et le Gouvernement (Trade and Government) was published in 1776. This was the same year Adam Smith's famous book Wealth of Nations came out. Condillac tried to explain economics in a clear, logical way. He was friends with François Quesnay, a leader of the Physiocrats. The Physiocrats were a group of thinkers who believed that the wealth of nations came from land and agriculture.
Much of Condillac's work agreed with the Physiocrats. He looked at how taxes were structured and suggested ways to improve the economy. However, he also had a different idea. He claimed that producers work to create "utility," which means usefulness or satisfaction. Most Physiocrats didn't focus on utility. Condillac's idea was largely ignored until it was "rediscovered" by other economists in 1871.
Condillac also developed a theory called "vrai prix" (true price). He believed human history had two phases: progress and decline. Progress happened when resources were used wisely. Decline started when the upper classes behaved badly, leading to too much luxury and false prices. These false prices harmed ordinary people. Condillac thought the solution was "vrai prix." This true price would be set by supply and demand working freely, without government control. He believed people could learn to work for their own best interest in an open market. By supporting a free market, Condillac influenced classical liberal economics.
History
Condillac's books Histoire ancienne (Ancient History) and Histoire moderne (Modern History) showed how learning from the past could help people. He believed history was more than just old stories. It was a source of information and inspiration. He thought that reason and critical thinking could make life better and get rid of old superstitions. So, for Condillac, history was like a textbook for morals, politics, and philosophy. It taught people how to live better lives. These two history books showed the main goals of the Age of Enlightenment.
Legacy
Condillac's ideas had a big impact, especially on English thinkers. His thoughts on how ideas connect, how pleasure and pain guide us, and how all mental content comes from sensations influenced philosophers like James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer.
Condillac also helped make psychology more scientific. He moved from simple observations to a more careful analysis of the mind. Even though his analysis might seem incomplete today, it was a big step forward.
However, his method of imagining things, like the statue, was not always popular in England. Even though he argued against abstract ideas, his statue example was very abstract. James Mill warned his son, John Stuart Mill, to avoid Condillac's method in psychology.
In France, Condillac's ideas were very popular for over 50 years. Only a few thinkers, like Maine de Biran, questioned them. They felt his ideas didn't fully explain our ability to make choices. Later, in the 19th century, new ideas from Germany spread to France. Condillac's "sensationism" was then replaced by other philosophical views.
Condillac's collected works were published many times. The last edition in 1822 included an introduction by A. F. Théry. The Encyclopédie méthodique also has a very long article about Condillac. You can find more information about him in books on the history of philosophy.
Psychologist Merlin Donald believes Condillac was the first "constructivist." This means he thought we actively build our understanding of the world.
Science fiction writer R. A. Lafferty wrote a short story called "Condillac's Statue, or Wrens in his Head." It brings Condillac's statue idea to life. In the story, Condillac builds the statue and slowly turns on its senses one by one.
Works
See also
In Spanish: Étienne Bonnot de Condillac para niños
