Этьен Бонно де Кондильяк: Философ и экономист эпохи Просвещения

18th century French philosopher

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (/UK/,/ɛ//t//i/'/ɛ//n// /'/b//ɒ//n//oʊ// //d//ə// /'/k//ɒ//n//d//i//æ//k/ ETeeEN BONoh də KONdeeak, etjɛn bɔno də kɔ̃dijak; 30 September 17142 August or 3 August 1780) was a French philosopher, epistemologist, and Catholic priest, who studied in such areas as psychology and the philosophy of the mind.

Condillac's 'Le Commerce et le Gouvernement' (published in 1776, the same year as Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations) attempted to place economics in a coherent logical framework. He was a friend of François Quesnay – leader of the Physiocrats. Much of Condillac's work reflected mainstream Physiocrats, particularly his analysis of the structure of taxation and proposals for the revival of the economy, but he also proposed another line of argument, claiming that producers work to obtain utility. Most physiocrats rejected utility and the idea was ignored until his 'rediscovery' by Stanley Jevons and Carl Menger in 1871. In his theory of "vrai prix" [true price], Condillac proposed a theory of human history divided into two phases: progress and decline. Progress is marked by a rational development and use of resources; decline is precipitated by bad behavior from the upper classes that then trickles down to the workers, encouraging excess, luxury, and false prices that harm the masses. Condillac saw the remedy to this as "vrai prix," a true price created by the unimpeded interaction of supply and demand, to be achieved by complete deregulation. People would be taught to work toward their best interest in an open market through a reshaping of their perceptions. By advocating of a free market economy in contrast to the prevailing contemporary policy of state control in France, Condillac influenced classical liberal economics.

Condillac's Histoire ancienne and Histoire moderne (1758–1767) demonstrated how the experience and observation of the past aided man. History was not a mere retelling of the past, but a source of information and inspiration as well. Reason and critical thinking can improve man's lot and destroy superstition and fanaticism. History thus served as a moral, political, and philosophical textbook which taught man to live better. Thus the two histories present the basic program of the Enlightenment in crystallized form.

As was fitting to a disciple of Locke, Condillac's ideas have had most importance in their effect upon English thought. In matters connected with the association of ideas, the supremacy of pleasure and pain, and the general explanation of all mental contents as sensations or transformed sensations, his influence can be traced upon the Mills and upon Bain and Herbert Spencer. And, apart from any definite propositions, Condillac did a notable work in the direction of making psychology a science; it is a great step from the desultory, genial observation of Locke to the rigorous analysis of Condillac, short sighted and defective as that analysis may seem to us in the light of fuller knowledge. His method, however, of imaginative reconstruction was by no means suited to English ways of thinking. In spite of his protests against abstraction, hypothesis and synthesis, his allegory of the statue is in the highest degree abstract, hypothetical and synthetic. James Mill, who stood more by the study of concrete realities, put Condillac into the hands of his youthful son with the warning that here was an example of what to avoid in the method of psychology. A modern historian has compared Condillac with Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and pre evolutionary thinker Lord Monboddo, who had a similar fascination with abstraction and ideas. In France Condillac's doctrine, so congenial to the tone of 18th century philosophism, reigned in the schools for over fifty years, challenged only by a few who, like Maine de Biran, saw that it gave no sufficient account of volitional experience. Early in the 19th century, the romantic awakening of Germany had spread to France, and sensationism was displaced by the eclectic spiritualism of Victor Cousin. Condillac's collected works were published in 1798 (23 vols.) and two or three times subsequently; the last edition (1822) has an introductory dissertation by A. F. Théry. The Encyclopédie méthodique has a very long article on Condillac by Naigeon. Biographical details and criticism of the Traité des systèmes in J. P. Damiron's Mémoires pour servir a l'histoire de to philosophie au dixhuitieme siècle, tome iii. ; a full criticism in V Cousin's Cours de l'histoire de la philosophie moderne, ser. i. tome iii. Consult also F Rethoré, Condillac ou l'empirisme et le rationalisme (1864); L Dewaule, Condillac et la psychologie anglaise contemporaine (1891); histories of philosophy. In Condillac's statue, a chapter in A Mind So Rare: The evolution of human consciousness, psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist Merlin Donald argues that Condillac was the first constructivist. In the short story "Condillac's Statue, or Wrens in his Head", science fiction writer R. A. Lafferty brings the allegory of Condillac's statue to life, having Condillac build the statue in a park in the French countryside, and then slowly turning the statue's senses on one at a time.