Essai sur l'origine des connoissances humaines. Amsterdam, Pierre Mortier, 1744.
2 volumes in-12 (165 x 94 mm) of XXIV, 265 pp. for volume
I ; 2 ff.n.ch., 292 pp. for volume II. Marbled calf, smooth spine decorated, marbled edges (period binding).
INED, 1163.
First edition of this text in which Condillac "endeavours to articulate a philosophy of knowledge with what we would consider a general semiotics. In this effort, Condillac's genius draws on the entire culture of his time to open up a path of research in which he is a pioneer. Having linked the idea to the sign, he undertook an inventory of the ways in which all kinds of institutional signs function. It then became possible for him to shake up the theory of ideas from within in the forms it had taken in his predecessors, in particular
Malebranche and Locke, and to bring the idea back to sensation without rest. In the course of this work, he sets up not only the bases, but even the project, destined to feed discussions for a long time, of a theory of the mind" (Vrin editor).
A fine copy, from the Champvieux library (bookplate).
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