TY - BOOK ID - 77898998 TI - Essay on the origin of human knowledge AU - Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de AU - Aarsleff, Hans PY - 2001 SN - 0511054149 1139164163 051115397X 0511016360 9780511016363 9780511153976 9781139164160 9780511054143 0521584671 0521585767 9780521584678 9780521585767 PB - Cambridge Cambridge University Press DB - UniCat KW - Psychology KW - Knowledge, Theory of KW - Language and languages KW - Foreign languages KW - Languages KW - Anthropology KW - Communication KW - Ethnology KW - Information theory KW - Meaning (Psychology) KW - Philology KW - Linguistics KW - Philosophy KW - Lenguaje y lenguas KW - Psicología KW - Teoría del conocimiento KW - Filosofía KW - Arts and Humanities UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:77898998 AB - Condillac's Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, first published in French in 1746 and offered here in a new translation, represented in its time a radical departure from the dominant conception of the mind as a reservoir of innately given ideas. Descartes had held that knowledge must rest on ideas; Condillac turned this upside down by arguing that speech and words are the origin of mental life and knowledge. He argued, further, that language has its origin in human interaction and in our natural capacity to react spontaneously and instinctively to the expression of emotions and states of mind in others. The importance of this pointedly anti-Cartesian view, and its relevance to both aesthetics and epistemology, were quickly understood, and Condillac's work influenced many later philosophers including Herder, Rousseau, and Adam Smith. His conception also anticipated Wittgenstein's view of language, its usage, and its relation to mind and thought. ER -