Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 935

ETIENNE BONNOT DE CONDILLAC (1715-1780) Traité des sensations, a Madame la comtesse de Vassé. Chez de Bure l'aîné 1754 Vol. I: [2] vi, 345 pp.; Vol. II: 335 [1] pp. 15.8 cm.

Condillac was a noted philosopher, psychologist, logician, economist, and Roman Catholic priest. His priesthood was of little importance to him and he devoted himself primarily to study and writing. For eleven years he was tutor to the son of the Duke of Parma and was elected to the French Academy in 1768. Condillac was strongly influenced by John Locke (1632-1704) and played a major role in introducing Locke's ideas into the thought of eighteenth-century France. Of his several works, the present treatise is his best known and most famous. In it he questioned Locke's contention that man's senses provide him with intuitive knowledge of his world. Condillac examined the senses by creating a hypothetical man without knowledge or impressions of the outside world and endowed him in turn with each of the five senses. As a result of his different sense experiments, Condillac concluded that all human knowledge is transformed sensation devoid of any other principle such as Locke's principle of reflection. The University of Iowa Libraries' copy bears the signature of Bonnet (see No. 947) on the title page of each volume.

See Related Record(s): 947

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 4968

Gift of John Martin, M.D.