Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

French philosopher

• Born: September 30, 1715
• Birthplace: Grenoble, France
• Died: August 3, 1780
• Place of death: Lailly-en-Val, France

Through writings famed for their precision, clarity, and persuasiveness, Condillac became the only major figure of the French Enlightenment to create a systematic theory of knowledge and to exhibit a professional command of the issues of philosophy.

Early Life

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (ay-tyehn baw-noh duh kohn-dee-yok) was the third son of Gabriel de Bonnot, vicomte de Mably, a magistrate and member of the noblesse de la robe in the Dauphiné provincial parlement. The name Condillac, by which he would be known for the rest of his life, was added in 1720, when his father bought the nearby estate and domain of that name. As a child, his health was poor, his eyesight was bad, and he was painfully shy. His education did not begin until after he was twelve, when a local priest taught him the basics. His mother, about whom virtually nothing is known, died when he was quite young, and his father died in 1727, when he was thirteen.

After his father’s death, he went to live with his eldest brother, Jean Bonnot de Mably, a royal official in Lyons, but his personal situation does not seem to have improved. His shy nature was apparently mistaken by his brother and family for simplemindedness. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was hired by Jean to tutor his children for a short time, was able to see what the family had missed, and so began a long friendship.

Condillac’s other brother, Gabriel Bonnot, had taken holy orders and styled himself the Abbé de Mably. He, too, saw something in Condillac, and, a few years later, Condillac went to Paris to live with Gabriel. Gabriel entered Condillac first at Saint-Sulpice and then at the Sorbonne to study theology. By 1740, Condillac had completed the course of studies and was ordained a priest.

While he wore a cassock and called himself the Abbé de Condillac for the rest of his life, it was reported that he said mass only once and otherwise chose not to exercise the office. This was not unusual in France at that time. Condillac was a man of pleasant but unremarkable appearance. His portrait shows large, wide-set eyes, a high forehead, and a modest smile. Other evidence indicates that he was of average height but slightly built. He wore neither a beard nor a mustache and kept his hair long and curled in the fashion of the day.

Life’s Work

Condillac was twenty-six years old when he left the Sorbonne, and, under the sponsorship of his brother, was introduced to the social and literary life of Paris. He soon decided that his education was inadequate to move in that circle and began educating himself, reading the works of René Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Baruch Spinoza, and Nicolas Malebranche. Sometime during this course of study, he developed a profound disapproval of their speculative systems of thought.

The English philosophers, whom he read next, were much more to his liking. Because he read no English, however, he had to rely on translations or someone’s summary and commentary. John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1690, had been translated into French in 1700 by Pierre Coste. It was this work that made the deepest impression on Condillac. He also read Voltaire’s summary and commentary Éléments de la philosophie de Newton (1738; The Elements of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy, 1738), which also introduced him to the Idealism of Bishop George Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710). He was also quite impressed with several works by Francis Bacon.

During these years, Condillac sometimes joined in the social life of the Paris salons, where he renewed his friendship with Rousseau, who introduced him to Denis Diderot. The three became good friends and met often. Later writings by both Rousseau and Diderot reflect Condillac’s influence. Condillac does not seem to have made much of an impression on the other intellectuals at the salons, probably because of his acute shyness and timidity. Condillac, however, would make his reputation with the printed word.

In 1746, Condillac published his first book, Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines (An Essay on the Origin of Human Understanding, 1756), and his second, Traité des systèmes (treatise on systems), in 1749. These two books were very well received and brought Condillac recognition as a major philosopher. Shortly after publishing the second book, he was honored by election to membership in the Academy of Sciences and Literature of Berlin.

What Condillac sought was a philosophy that was an exact science. He thought philosophy should be clear, precise, universal, and, above all, verifiable. An Essay on the Origin of Human Understanding was a systematic elaboration of Locke’s theory that all human knowledge was derived from two sources: the information received by the mind through the senses and the mind’s ability to reflect upon that information and understand its meaning. It was a brilliant study, using only empirical evidence and a strictly logical methodology. Condillac’s essay established empirical sensationism as the prevailing analysis of the working of the human mind for the Enlightenment.

His Traité des systèmes was a vigorous criticism of the metaphysical systems of Descartes, Leibniz, and others that were rationalistic and not empirical. He attempted to show that there was no empirical evidence for such ideas as Descartes’ innate ideas or for Leibniz’s monads, that these ideas were mere speculations without basis in fact. Condillac accused these philosophers of having used vague words that had no clear and precise meaning, thereby producing only confusion and misunderstanding.

In 1754, after some delay because of trouble with his eyes, Condillac published his most advanced work on the theory of empirical sensationism, Traité des sensations (Condillac’s Treatise on the Sensations, 1930). To help illustrate the role of sensation in the acquisition of knowledge, he described what it would be like if a person were encased in marble and his mind had never received any sensory information and, therefore, was completely blank. Condillac then imagined what would happen when the nose was uncovered and how the person’s mind would react to a flood of olfactory information. That person’s perceptions, comparisons, memories, recognitions, and abstractions would consist only of odors. He then uncovered the other sense organs, one at a time, describing how the mind would react to the new data and correlate it with the data from the other sense organs. Condillac described how—when all senses were functioning together—these sense impressions produced pleasure and pain, and desires and aversions; he also described how all aspects of a person’s mental life were derived from sensations.

After his first book on Locke’s theory, he had discovered a problem that he attempted to correct in this work. Diderot had pointed it out to him. Locke had written about two sources of knowledge, sensory impressions and the reflection of the mind on these impressions. If sensation did not imprint knowledge directly on the mind but required the reflection of the mind, this meant that the mind was conscious of itself and its operations of thinking, doubting, reasoning, and willing. Condillac thought that this implied the existence of innate ideas, which he denied. In this book, he sought to avoid that issue by making language the means by which sensation passed into reflection to become knowledge. Language was the cause of the most complex operations of the mind, including attention, memory, imagination, and intuition. Since all language was learned, there could be no innate ideas.

In his Treatise on the Sensations, Condillac moved from being merely a student of Locke, having produced the most rigorous demonstration of sensationalist theory of his century. When it was pointed out that his work could be interpreted as advocating materialism and atheism, Condillac published two works in 1755 to refute the claim. In the brief Dissertation sur la liberté, and then in Traité des animaux, Condillac denied that animals were mere machines and possessed no spiritual soul. Condillac never agreed that his theories eliminated free will or the spiritual side of the human experience.

After 1754, Condillac’s work was being discussed by intellectuals in other countries and by high officials of France. In 1758, he was invited to Parma to tutor the duke of Parma’s son, Ferdinand, who was a grandchild of the king and queen of France. He remained there until January of 1767, during which time he wrote the impressive sixteen-volume Cours d’études pour l’instruction du prince de Parme (1775) for the young Ferdinand. The set included a grammar, a handbook of writing style, a book on the scientific method, an analysis of the psychology of thought, a philosophy of history, and history texts. In appreciation of his services, the duke obtained the revenue of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Mureau for Condillac. This liberal income removed all personal financial worries for the rest of Condillac’s life.

In 1768, Condillac, back in Paris, was elected to the French Academy. He was asked to become tutor to the three sons of the dauphine, who included the future kings Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and Charles X, but he refused. Instead, he devoted himself to the publication of the Cours d’études pour l’instruction du prince de Parme and rarely attended the academy or the salons. Condillac’s criticisms of church politics had apparently earned for him the hostility of the bishop of Parma, who delayed publication of the works. With the intervention of several of his philosophe friends, Condillac received permission to publish his books in Paris. In 1773, he left Paris for the peace and quiet of the château, where he remained for the rest of his life.

In 1776, Condillac published a book on political economy, Le Commerce et le gouvernement considérés relativement l’un à l’autre, in which he presented the novel idea that value was a matter of utility and not labor. That same year, he joined the Société Royale d’Agriculture d’Orléans. Condillac returned to Paris for a short visit each year; his last trip was in the summer of 1780. While there he fell ill and returned to Château Flux. When his condition worsened, he sent for a priest to reaffirm his Catholic faith. He died of a fever on the night of August 2, 1780, at the age of sixty-five.

Significance

Building on the work of Locke, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac contributed more to a synthesis of epistemology and psychology than did any other writer of philosophy of the Enlightenment. His method was empirical observation. His ideas and methodology inspired the philosophes, and reflections of his work are found throughout their works. The goal of the philosophes was to bring about a revolution in the way people thought and to end superstition, prejudice, and ignorance. They hoped to teach people to think clearly, rationally, and scientifically. The major theoretician behind this new way of thinking was Condillac. He established its epistemological foundations, which he had derived with a methodology that he hoped would not only withstand criticism but also be applicable to all the fields of knowledge available to humankind.

Condillac’s influence extended beyond his own time. Jeremy Bentham incorporated Condillac’s concept of pleasure and pain as motivating forces into his philosophy of Utilitarianism. James Mill and John Stuart Mill also borrowed ideas from Condillac. His philosophy and methodology of history inspired a number of nineteenth and twentieth century historians in their attempts to make the writing of history scientific. The Enlightenment made important and productive contributions to philosophy and to a better understanding of how the human mind works. Condillac’s work, which was central to the Enlightenment, is an important part, therefore, of the Western intellectual tradition.

The contrast between Condillac’s work as a philosopher and his personal life makes his achievements remarkable. As a philosopher he was a stringent empiricist, but privately he was a devout Catholic. He believed that humans had souls without any empirical evidence to support such a belief. His ideas were among the most radical and progressive of his age, yet politically he was a conservative monarchist. As a philosopher his work concerned all the myriad sensations and experiences a person could have and how knowledge grew from them, but Condillac himself was virtually a one-dimensional person. He never married and was virtually a recluse who shunned contact with all but a very few people. He preferred the quiet and solitude of the countryside to the excitement of the city. With the few close friends he did have, he seems to have discussed only philosophical issues. For Condillac, philosophy was his life.

Bibliography

Brewer, Daniel. The Discourse of Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century France: Diderot and the Art of Philosophizing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Describes how French Enlightenment writers attempted to rationally critique and demystify all knowledge. While it focuses on Diderot, the book also contains information about Condillac.

Cassirer, Ernst. Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Translated by Fritz A. C. Koelln and James P. Pettegrove. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951. A brilliant and perceptive work of intellectual history. Cassirer does not present a lengthy discussion of Condillac in any one place. Instead, he integrates his discussion of Condillac into topically arranged analyses, in which he reveals a fine appreciation for what is important and what is peripheral in Condillac’s thought.

Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de. Commerce and Government Considered in Mutual Relationship. Translated by Shelagh Eltis. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar, 1997. English translation of Condillac’s economic treatise, in which he argued that commerce and industry, in addition to agriculture, contributed to France’s wealth. Includes an introductory essay by Shelagh Eltis and Walter Eltis about Condillac’s life and contributions to economics.

Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. 2 vols. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966-1969. A lively and brilliant interpretation of the Enlightenment organized by topic. Less critical of the philosophes than some historians, but a gold mine of information.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment. New York: W. W. Norton, 1971. A series of essays on various aspects of the Enlightenment by one of the period’s most renowned historians. See especially the essay on “The Unity of the French Enlightenment.”

Hazard, Paul. The European Mind, 1680-1715. Translated by J. Lewis May. Cleveland, Ohio: World, 1963. An interesting and well-respected treatment of the origins and early days of the Enlightenment. Often treats the philosophes with cynical amusement, which interferes with an appreciation of the book’s positive qualities.

Knight, Isabel F. The Geometric Spirit: The Abbé de Condillac and the French Enlightenment. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968. This is the closest there is to a biography of Condillac in English. Focuses primarily on Condillac’s ideas concerning the origins of knowledge and gives little attention to his personal life. Perceptive in spots, but pedestrian in others.

Krieger, Leonard. Kings and Philosophers, 1689-1789. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970. An excellent, well-written history of the Enlightenment age. Explains how the Enlightenment was made possible, in part, by the political stability that resulted from the end of the Reformation wars and the rise of the centralized state, and how the ideas of the Enlightenment came into conflict with divine right monarchies and produced the French Revolution.

Woloch, Isser. Eighteenth-Century Europe: Tradition and Progress, 1715-1789. New York: W. W. Norton, 1982. One of the best general histories of the age with a good annotated bibliography. Recommended for the reader who needs an understanding of the entire age before concentrating on the intellectual history of Condillac and the Enlightenment.