Olav Gundersen:

C o n d i l l a c :  b e t w e e n  L o c k e  a n d  H e r d e r

Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de (b Grenoble, 30 September 1714; d Flux, 3 August 1780) French Philosopher. He was ordained in 1741. He helped to popularize Locke's philosophy in France. His Essai sur l'origine des connaissances (1746), Traité des systèmes (1749) and Traité des sensations, in particular, were influential in promoting sensationism. The late eighteenth-century group of Idéologues looked above all to Condillac for inspiration. From 1758 to 1767 he was tutor to the Prince of Parma, for whom he wrote a course of studies. He was elected to the Académie Française in 1768. (Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment.)
 

Condillac and freedom: his place in the history of ideas

Condillac is placed between Locke and Herder by the fact that large portions of Condillac's Essai simply are resumés of the corresponding parts of Locke's Essay. Apart from the dates of birth and death, and the mentioning of his most well-known works, on the whole the only thing The Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment says of Condillac is that «He helped to popularize Locke's philosophy in France» (Yolton 1995, p.105). This is in accord with the subtitle to the English translation of his Essai, which appeared in 1756, 10 years after the original French publication, and which runs: «A Supplement to Mr. Locke's Essay».

Johann Gottfried Herder's «Treatise of the Origin of Language» (1770) is a polemical attack on Condillac's Essai, incorporating and transforming many of the latter's theories and examples. It was written during Herder's stay in Strassbourg in 1769, where he read ``Part II'' of Condillac's Essai (See Aarsleff 1982, p.198).

In other words it is possible for an historian of ideas to find a clear line of ``causal'' development. But according to Foucault, following such a line of continuous development is for the vulgar academic (Foucault 1970, p.125ff.).
 

Foucault, Derrida, and Condillac: the double origin of language

This double origin is also what Derrida focuses on in his «introduction» to Condillac in The Archeology of the Frivolous. Derrida classifies Condillac as a «metaphysician» since in his theory the last is the first --- or the other way round (Derrida 1980, ch. 1: «The Second First --- Metaphysics»). The archeology of the frivolous, then, is the excavation of the relationship between the two theses of Condillac's Essai:

Condillac criticizes language for frivolous idleness in the case when each and every linguistic expression is not well founded through being connected in a non-equivocal way to determinate impressions or ideas. This is a theory that he adopts unchanged from Descartes and Locke.

We must ascend to the origin of our ideas, we must unfold their formation, and trace them to the limits which nature has prescribed, to the end that we may fix the extent and boundaries of our knowledge, and new model as it were the whole frame of the human understanding. (Essai, Intro. p.6){2}

Simultaneously he insists on the theory that language is a necessary presupposition for the mind's having ideas, for the connection of the ideas with each other, and finally for the mind reaching clarity and distinctness about them. This he characterizes as his own epoch-making discovery. What, according to the previous thesis should come before language, as its foundation, according to this second thesis presupposes language as a condition.

[... ] I am convinced that the use of signs is the principle which unfolds all our ideas as they lye in the bud. (Essai, Intro., p.11)

[... ] we evidently see in what manner good sense, wit, reason and their contraries equally result from the same principle, which is the connexion of ideas one with the other; and that tracing things still higher, we see that this connexion is produced by the use of signs. This is the principle we lay down. (I.ii.xi, § 107, p.102) {3}

After the printing of my Essai, from which the largest part of this work is drawn, I have completed the demonstration of the necessity of signs in my Grammar and in my Logic. (De l'art de penser, here cited from Aarsleff 1982, p.154-5)

In the first part, we have seen that words are absolutely necessary for us to formulate ideas of any kind. (Logic, II.ii, p.388)
 

Herder's critique

Herder criticizes Condillac for the first of the two features which, according to Foucault, characterize the episteme of representation, i.e. the presupposition of a mind already in possession of an internal or mental language when attempting to explain in general how language is possible. According to Herder it is easy to produce a theory of language when the mental theory-language is already presumed. For in that case one can, with ``will and consciousness'', define the various linguistic elements of the external, verbal language with the help of this already functioning internal, mental language of ideas. {4} Herder fits nicely in Foucault's theory of succeeding epistemes in The Order of Things by embodying the modern episteme, the one succeeding that of representation. This episteme «of the human existence» is characterized by language not presupposing a pre-existing mind. On the contrary the mind now becomes dependent on the historical existence of language. Thought (in the previous episteme: the idea) no longer precedes language, on the contrary, language precedes thought.

In attempting to answer the question on the origin of language, Herder pushes both the origin of language and the origin of thought back into an unreachable, prehistoric and common first point. Language develops from action, language is action, and language-action and thought are two aspects of the same thing. The ground for this is found in the concept of «domain of action», which is designed to avoid the connotations of strict causal responses inherent in the traditional concept of instinct. Man's lack of instincts is not something completely other than the instincts of animals, as Herder opts for a continuum between instincts and reason. Animals are restricted to the «domain of action» through very specialized senses, but their movements are not a result of causal determination. Similarly man's reason is not a special faculty of the soul not found in animals. It is simply that in man the domain of action is unbounded: man's senses are unspecialized and flexible. Thus from the origin, this prehistoric first and common point of departure for language and thought, forces man to «choose» his actions. This choice is in one and the same instant identical with both reflective thought and language. To actualize this flexible power in different directions is to develop reason and language (Herder 1770E, p.107ff.) And since the first words are actions, Herder, though not mentioned by Foucault in The Order of Things, is an instance or exemplar of the theory of language within the modern episteme of humanity, by proclaiming the verb to be the most fundamental and originary linguistic element (Herder 1770E, p.132-133). {5}

In the beginning was man and his lack of instincts, according to Herder. Therefore man must, on his own, develop his repertoire of actions. Actions express their own meaning, they are meaningful as actions without representing anything extrinsic to action itself. Little by little a verbal language is developed, at first as a substitute for bodily action. These sounds have meaning in the same way as the actions they substitute, but after a while they take on the role as names of the substituted actions, in other words they become verbs. Nouns, names of (``non-acting'') substances, are the fruit of the very last and most advanced development of language.

The development of language(/action) is development of reason and thought. {6} Therefore language can not possibly be arbitrary for Herder. The fact that different peoples and different cultures have different languages is no argument against this, since the will of an individual living inside a culture with a determinate language has no control or power over its language. {7} The power to will something, for instance to will to give a certain sound a certain meaning through a definition, presupposes the existence of a language in which one exercises one's will.

For Herder meaning in language is identical to the meaning of action in social space. There is no need to postulate mental ideas as entities which actions are to be public pictures of. Actions express meaning without any pictorial relation. To acquire competence as a participant in the linguistic-social practice is to acquire the power of thought and reflexion. Freedom is not a foundation for language but is inherent in the competence we reach as we become participants in language as a social practice.
 
 

Locke's pre-established mind

Locke's Essay appeared in 1690, and he is certainly as central, if not more, a representative of the episteme of representation as Condillac. The point on which Locke differs from Condillac, and where Condillac finds it necessary to supplement Locke, is on the role of language in relation to mental ideas. According to Locke the human mind is capable of a clear and distinct knowledge from the outset, prior to the use of a verbal language. The mind is capable of analyzing and synthesizing ideas, of abstracting and generalizing them, prior to the translation of them into an external language. It is in relation to the pre-established mental language of ideas that external, verbal language is arbitrary. The mind and the will utilize the ideas prior to language so as to give language meaning arbitrarily by deciding which ideas are to be related to which sounds:

Thus we may conceive how Words, which were by Nature, so well adapted to that purpose, came to be made use of by Men, as the Signs of their Ideas; not by any natural connexion, that there is between particular articulate Sounds and certain Ideas, for then there would be but one Language amongst all Men; but by a voluntary Imposition, whereby such a Word is made arbitrarily the Mark of such an Idea. The use of Words then, is to be sensible marks of Ideas; and the Ideas they stand for, are their proper and immediate signification. (Locke: Essay, III.ii.1, p.405)

Though examining and judging of Ideas by themselves, their Names being quite laid aside, be the best and surest way to clear and distinct Knowledge: yet through the prevailing custom of using Sounds for Ideas, I think it is very seldom practiced. (Locke: Essay, IV.vi.1, p.579) {9}

For Locke, the association of ideas is simply the same thing as insanity (Locke: Essay, II.xxxiii, p.394, esp. §4, p.395: «A degree of Madness»). When association takes place, the mind is passively led hither and thither in the web of ideas, without any control or government. This lack of control and government is inherent in the language given and delivered from generation to generation through tradition and history. No-one has thoroughly inspected this traditionally delivered and given language from one end and to the other in order to examine if it in reality contains truth and knowledge.

Locke, as a representative of the scientific revolution, considered it his duty to remove the ferment and rubbish which, without examination, was taken to contain truth and knowledge (Locke: Essay, ``Epistle to the Reader'', p.10). Truth can only be obtained on the condition that all human mediation through language, literature, tradition, and uncontrolled association are removed and the mind is guaranteed a total control over its own contents, the pure ideas. The critique of language is an expression of the attempt to found all knowledge on (mainly visual) impressions. The (visual) impression therefore must be unmediated, i.e., immediate (see for instance Locke's Essay, IV.ii.1, p.531). Scientific language on the other hand is a language constructed by the mind to immediately reflect, represent and picture the unmediated impressions.
 

Condillac and the double origin

All this we find in what Derrida (Derrida 1980) calls Condillac's concept of frivolous propositions. These are propositions which are not founded in experience in the form of primitive impressions. One reason for the existence of unscientific speculation is that we do not examine our language. We do not examine the signification of each single linguistic expression, to see whether they are founded on a connection with clear and distinct ideas. This situation has its background in the way we, as children, acquire language: We simply start to talk without caring for the connection between the linguistic elements and their respective determinate ideas. On the other hand according to Condillac, the only person who is able to speak with meaning is the one who exactly knows which simple ideas are connected to each and every word he is pronouncing:

What accustoms us to this inaccuracy, is the manner in which we form ourselves to language. We do not arrive at the age of reason, till long after we have contracted the habit of speech. (I.ii.i, §5, p.302) }

Condillac's opinion, like Locke's, is that we have to re-establish language from scratch, that is by founding it on unmediated ideas, and without being in any way concerned about the existing common use:

[... ] so I apprehend that if we have any design of rendering a language exact, we ought to reform it without regard to use or custom.
 

[... ]

Hence I have been induced to believe, that to render a language clear and precise, it would be requisite to take the materials of our knowledge once more in hand, and to frame new combinations of them, without any regard to those already made. (II.ii.ii, §11, p.305-6)

It is in our infancy that we imbibe those prejudices which retard the progress of knowledge, and lead us into so many errors. If God were to create an adult person, with organs so perfect, that the very first moment of his existence he enjoyed the full use of reason, this man would not meet with the same difficulties as we in the investigation of truth. He would invent no signs but in proportion as he experienced new sensations, and made new reflexions. (II.ii.iii, §29, p.365).

This role, however, makes the possibility of such a foundational and representational relation highly questionable. If this is so, it is also necessary to doubt Condillac's role as the most representative thinker within the episteme of representation. Thus Condillac's supplementation in relation to Locke makes it more natural to regard him as on the way from Locke's theory of representation in the direction of Herder's theory of language as action. The origin and source of language is no longer in our impressions or other mental content, but in our actions. Thus in thinking like this, we are no longer thinking like Foucault but more like one of his ``despised'' historians of ideas, in other word on a more superficial, less archaeological level. But with this said, we still accept that there takes place a change of paradigms in the theory of language from the 17th. and 18th. centuries to the 19th. This is in opposition to Aarsleff. As is clear from his ``Introduction'', Aarsleff's main point is that thought precedes language, and that this is what makes language other than a mere piece of physical nature.{10}

In his introduction, Condillac proclaims that he has found the solution to every philosophical problem, and that solution lies in regarding the connection between ideas (la liaison des idées). Everything can be traced back to this principle (Essai, Intro., p.6). Everything is composed through the connection of ideas. But --- this is the supplement and what he proclaims to be the new in relation to Locke --- the connection between ideas takes place through the idea's connection with the linguistic sign. External language is a condition for the existence of both mental ideas itself and the connection between them.

The ideas are connected with the signs, and it is only by this means, as I shall prove, they are connected with each other. (Essai, Intro., p.7)

On the one hand, I have ascended to perception, because it is the first operation we observe in the mind; and I have shewn how, and in what order it produces every other operation of which we can acquire act and habit. On the other hand, I have begun with the language of action: here the reader will see how it has produced every art proper to express our thoughts; such as gesture, dancing, speech, declamation, arbitrary marks for words or things, pantomimes, music, poetry, eloquence, writing, and the different characters of language. (Essai, Intro., p.6)

Language of action and freedom

Condillac's project can be read as an attempt of escaping the passivity and unfreedom which is implied by the representational model of knowledge as unmediated offprints of external reality. The formulated contrariety between ideas as the foundation for language and language as foundation for ideas can be seen as an expression of the point that Condillac is on the move away from the way of ideas and towards a theory of culture and forms of life as regards the fundamental. Through Condillac (as with Hume) the philosophy of enlightenment is in the process of overcoming itself.

In the Introduction to the Essai Locke is criticized for presupposing from the outset a pre-established, fully functioning mind. Condillac, the contrary, point to the necessity of describing how we come to acquire such an autonomous mind. In childhood we had impressions long before we acquired consciousness of these impressions as ideas:

Thus the soul not having had immediately and from the first instant the exercise of all its operations, it was a point of the utmost consequence, for the better unfolding the origin of knowledge, to shew in what manner she acquires this exercise, and what progress she makes in it. (Essai, Intro., p.10)

Nay, perhaps the design of explaining the origin of the operations of the mind, by deriving them from a simple perception, will appear so new, that the reader will have a difficulty to comprehend, in what manner I shall execute it. (Essai, Intro., p.11)

The linguistic sign and the operations of the mind

The various operations of the mind in ascending order from the more primitive to the more advanced, are as follows:

--- perception

--- conscience

--- attention

--- réminiscence

It is through the principle of the liaison des idées, which at this stage of the process is pre-reflective or ``pre-exersive'', that causes the next operation of the mind to grow forth. Perception is pure receptivity of impressions, conscience implies that we become conscious of impressions, attention that we select and focus on one part of the conglomerate of impressions (it is rather more adequate to express the latter more passively: that we are led to be more aware of one idea to the exclusion of others).

The variant of memory called réminiscence conserves the order of impressions. It establishes a chain of ideas based on their original and natural order. This chain will subsequently put us in the position where we can recall a certain idea by activating one which is earlier in the chain. Condillac stresses this point: ``Hence I consider this connexion as a first and fundamental experience, which has a right to be considered as sufficient to explain every other'' (I.ii.i, §15, p.37)

The next operations are:

--- imagination

--- contemplation

--- mémoire
 
 

Of these, imagination is the more important one. On this stage of the exposition, it is purely passive. Derrida of course makes a big fuss around the fact that Condillac at a later stage introduces a new operation which on the contrary is active, exercise, sovereign and autonomous, and which carries the same name as passive imagination (Derrida 1980, p.71ff.). On the other hand we more modestly state that there is a distinction here between passive and active imagination, and we are relating for the time being to the passive one. This latter is parasitic on reminiscence and consists, as we have already seen, in the following: When one link in the chain which is established by the réminiscence is activated, imagination is the causal activation through the chain of a later link in it. Passive imagination consists then in that the chains of ideas which reminiscence has established becomes activated by impressions (I.ii.ii, §17, p.38).

The passive imagination wakes up chains of perceptions. In distinction to this mémoire consists not in the waking up of one idea, but in the waking up of the circumstances of a previous idea or impression. Passive imagination can then for instance be that the name awakes the idea of the person carrying this name. And mémoire is thus described:

Let us think, for example, on a flower whose smell we are not accustomed to, we shall recollect the name of it; we shall remember the circumstances of our having seen it; we shall represent to ourselves the fragrancy of it, under the general idea of a perception that affects the specific perception. Now the operation which produces this effect I call it memory. (I.ii.ii, §18, p.38-9)

Between the imagination, the memory, and reminiscence, there is a certain progress, by which alone they are distinguished. The first renews the perceptions themselves; the second brings to our minds only their signs or circumstances; the third makes us discern them as perceptions which we have had before. And here it may be proper to observe, that the same operation which I call memory, in regard to those perceptions of which it revives only the signs or circumstances, is imagination in respect to the signs or circumstances revived; since these signs and circumstances are perceptions. (I.ii.ii, §25, p.44.)

The distinction between passive imagination and mémoire becomes important when we reach the explanation of the different types of signs. The circumstances surrounding something which we perceive are by Condillac regarded as an accidental signs of this perception.
 
 

The transition from natural to instituted signs

I distinguish three sorts of signs: 1.~Accidental signs, or the objects which particular circumstances have connected with some of our ideas, so as to render the one proper to revive the other. 2.~Natural signs, or the cries which nature has established to express the passions of joy, of fear, or of grief, etc. 3.~Instituted signs, or those which we have chosen ourselves, and bear only an arbitrary relation to our ideas. (I.ii.iv, §35, p.51.)

When it is absent, he [the person used as an example] has no possible means of reviving it of himself, since he has no command over those things with which the object is connected; [... ] Hence his imagination is not as yet in his power. (I.ii.iv, §37, p.52)

Natural cries/signs are not capable of producing any perception. They are causally-instinctive effects of perceptions. But through habituation, by enough repetition of the natural cries, we will acquire familiarity with the connection between these cries and the perceptions or emotions that causes them and of which they are the natural, quasi instinctive expressions. Hence the cry, after a while, will be capable of producing these perceptions or emotions in ourselves. And when this happens, the natural cry has become a sign for the perception or emotion. But then the cry is no longer natural, but instituted.

Under these circumstances mémoire, in its fundamental and human meaning consists in the following: The sign of an idea is something which we are capable of producing ourselves through our own will, arbitrarily and not causally. By producing the sign we become capable of exercising control and government over our own ideas. In this way we also gain self-control over our imagination. Imagination has now become active.

When this is done, he begins of himself to dispose of his imagination, and to give it a new habit. For by means of the signs which he is able to recall at pleasure, he revives, or at least is often capable of reviving the ideas which are connected with them. Afterwards he obtains a greater command over his imagination, in proportion as he invents more signs, because he thereby procures more means of employing it. (I.ii.iv, §46, p.57-8)

Language of action and the freedom of the agent's perspective

This way of posing the problem can be dismissed as irrelevant. The transition from internal to external implies that Condillac, obviously more or less without conscious deliberation, is taking the consequences of the {\it camera obscura\/} model of the mind. We must therefore seek human freedom, the sovereignty over our own thought in an altogether different dimension. Condillac is in transition from the concept of the mind as a mental container towards a concept of the body's movement of body in space and time as the place for the constitution of meaning. Like his contemporary David Hume he starts working on the disassembling of the passive representational mechanisms found in the way of ideas. The theory of the language of action is the beginning of the introduction of the first persons agent's perspective as a substitute for the objectifying and hence passive perspective inherent in the mind's perception of its own ideas as internal objects.

As soon as the memory is formed, and the habit of the imagination is in our power, the signs recollected by the former, and the ideas revived by the latter, begin to free the soul from her dependence in regard to the objects by which she was surrounded. (I.ii.v §47, p.58-9)

It seems that we could never make use of instituted signs, unless we were previously capable of sufficient reflexion to chuse those signs, and to affix ideas to them: what is the reason then, some perhaps will object, that the habit of reflexion is to be acquired only by the use of these signs?

My answer is, that I shall solve this difficulty, when I come to treat of the history of language. In the mean time it will be sufficient here to observe that it has not escaped me. (I.ii.v, §49, p.60)

Thus by the mutual assistance which these operations shall lend each other, they will reciprocally contribute to each other's progress.(ibid.)

So long as we do not direct our attention ourselves, we have seen that the soul is subject to whatever environs it, and possesses nothing but by an extrinsic virtue. {12}

[... ]

The effect of this operation [reflection] is so much the greater, as thereby we dispose of our perceptions, in the same manner almost as if we had a power of producing and annihilating them. (I.ii.v, §51, p.61)

Later Condillac becomes known for his thesis that nature teaches us to analyze and thereby to become masters over our own ideas. This is found in his Logique, which can be regarded as a shorter version of his Essai, published 34 years later, in 1780. But this theory is also present in the Essai, in the form of the theory that the language of action (which corresponds to what he in Part I of the Essai calls the natural cries) is the foundation of instituted signs.

In Part II of the Essai, Condillac describes the thought experiment which is criticized by Herder: two children are placed in the desert to see how they develop language. Herder's point is simply that the children will die from starvation and thirst long before they get the chance to say something meaningful. According to Herder language never starts from scratch in this way. We humans are social beings, and live in society, where we through a long period are cared for by our parents. This is essential for our being language-creatures.

But Condillac's point with the experiment is to show that reminiscence and imagination are purely passive, instinctive mechanisms in the children. The language of action as well as the natural cries are functioning socially (presupposing that the children do not die, of course). Like in Herder's theory, needs, lacks, and dangerous situations make the children act in certain ways and utter various sounds. These actions and sounds are something the children have in common. They understand each other's expressions without them being explicit agreed upon.

One of them did not say to himself, I must make such particular motions to render him sensible of my want, and to induce him to relieve me: nor the other, I see by his motions that he wants such a thing, and I will let him have it: but they both acted in consequence of the want which pressed them most. (II.i.i, §2, p.172-3.)

[... ] and insensibly they learned to do by reflexion what they had hitherto done merely by instinct. [... ] For example, he who saw a place in which he had been frightened, mimicked those cries and movements which were the signs of fear, in order to warn the other not to expose himself to the same danger. (II.i.i, §3, p.173)

Condillac also reads the Old Testament and argues that in the cultures described there one had a mixture of language of action and verbal language. Of the evidence for this one can cite the fact that prophets and priests are said to dance, which is to use the language of action in communicating their messages (II.ii-iv).

Language of action and meaning: communicative or representative?

From the point of view of Condillac's theory of the language of action, it seems plausible to say that there is nothing original in Herder's theory of language. But if we do that, we fail to notice a very important ``detail'': Condillac really belongs within the representational épisteme, while Herder does not. Natural expressions, according to Condillac, are always expressions of ideas. Passive imagination, which is in a way the internal kernel of the language of action in its passive, reactive stage, is based on the association of ideas. The purpose of language is to gain control and self-government over ideas. It is also a presupposition for proper ideas. So even if the consequence of the theory is that ideas in the last instance become secondary in relation to action and other external signs, according to Condillac the function of language is to give us control over and to express something internal, which is presupposed there in advance. In Condillac's theory of the different word classes the noun is the most fundamental one, and not the verb as it is in Herder. The first articulated sounds get their signification by being expressed in circumstances where other people present necessarily must receive the same impressions.

In order to comprehend in what manner mankind agreed among themselves, about the first signification of words, it is sufficient to observe, that they pronounced them under such particular circumstances, that every one was obliged to refer them to the same perceptions. (II.i.ix, § 80, p. 237)

Later, in the Logique, it is possible to interpret some passages in such a way that the idea, the mental picture of the object, becomes reduced to action; the idea can be ``bypassed'' like Wittgenstein's beetle in the box. The same theory of natural cries as in the Essai is found here, and it is undeniable that ideas are mental images of the external objects. But when treating the ontology of the idea he describes it as a modification or movement of the body.

The memory of a song played on a musical instrument has its seat in the fingers, in the ear, and in the brain. In the fingers, which have developed the habit of a series of movements; in the ear, which monitors the fingers and, in case of need, directs them only because it has developed for its part, the habit of another series of movements; and in the brain, which has developed the habit of passing through the forms that correspond exactly to the habits of the fingers and the ears. (Logic, I.xi, p.379)

This consequence is drawn by Herder: action is its own meaning in so far as it is performed. Meaning for Herder is what Locke called common use or common acceptation, and what Condillac simply called usage. Signification is inessential to Herder. When Condillac pushes the origin of language back in a point where it is hardly possible to distinguish thought and speech, and where one instead finds the original, passive language of action, and when one further makes the speech act an instrument for human thought, he has already formulated the insights which later make it possible for the hermeneuticians to say that it is not man who speaks through language but language which speaks through man. For the individual, then, the origin of language lies in the ``language-games'' which are already there from the time it is born, and which it must accomodate to and acquire competence in in order to be able to express itself so that it can be able to formulate its own thoughts.

Locke and Descartes experience the separation of human though and subjectivity from nature and concludes from this that subjective thought is absolutely autonomous --- also for the individual. Condillac can be seen, like Rousseau I believe, as an transitory figure on the way to the theory where what has acquired autonomy is not the individual, but language and culture, something living a life of its own, ``like an organism'' {13} not controlled by the individual in the way that Locke envisaged. Not the individual but human society has acquired autonomy, and sociality from now on appears to man as ``second nature''.

Condillac's transitory status can be appreciated in the chapter on the Génie des langues. Here he opens by stating that each individual has its own language ``according to his passions'' (II.i.v, § 143, p. 284). The great writers and poets form and develop the language of the nation (ibid., § 145, p. 286). But later on, when he treats the individual genius, using Newton as an example, the theory is that the realization of Newton's geniality requires that language, in this case the mathematical language of calculus, is developed to an appropriate level. Only then can language be the tool Newton needed to perform his genial thoughts by formulating them in this language (ibid., § 147, p. 287f., see also Derrida 1980. pp.65-6). What makes language contain illusions for Condillac is the fact that we in early childhood learn language as a praxis without connecting each word to a clear and distinct idea. In Locke's terms we acquire language as common use and common acceptance, but without signification. This has the negative effect according to Condillac that we mistake this form of linguistic meaning with innate ideas. But it is exactly the same fact about language-acquisition which makes Herder point at the use of language, since this fact makes it in principle non-transparent, as the in itself unfounded fulcrum of our thought. When historical-critical philology later is established as a science, it is through the establishment of the objectivity of its subject matter by the means of considering language as an objective entity, an organism, living its own life and developing through history without being subject to the control of a cartesian/lockean ego. {14}
 
 
 
 

Notes

1. ``From the theory of the proposition to that of derivation, all Classical reflection upon language --- all that was called `general grammar' --- is merely a detailed commentary upon the simple phrase: `language analyses'.'' (Foucault 1970, p.115) [back to text]

2. Aarsleff is citing this place from another french edition than the one I have had access to, and in that edition ``voilà le principe'' is obviously changed, since Aarsleff's translation is: ``So far as I know, I am the first person to have recognized it.'' (Aarsleff, p.150). [back to text]

3. ``The Abbé Condillac belongs in this group. Either he supposes the whole thing called language to have been invented prior to the first page of his book, or I find things on every page that could not possibly have occurred in the orderly continuity of a language in formation.'' (Herder 1770E, p.99). [back to text]

4. This in opposition to Locke. Locke's {\it Essay\/}, Book III «Of Words», contains many chapters on names, only one page «Of Particles», and none on verbs. [back to text]

5. ``Thus language appears as a natural organ of reason, a sense of the human soul ... '' (Herder 1770E, p.128) [back to text]

6. ``The entire language of their children was a dialect of their thoughts ... ''(Herder 1970G, p.71). ``Children learn language and children have learned language from the beginning, they could simply not reflect, simply not control anything, they accepted every inventor's truths and prejudices on the authority of their masters, and sweared them eternal loyalty.'' (Herder 1770G, ``pp.71-2.'' (Translation my own. There seems to be a contradiction bewteen content and grammatical form in the actual passage. The German runs: ``Kinder lernen die Sprache und Kinder haben sie von Anfange an gelernt, die also nichts weniger als überdenken, als prüfen konnten, die alle Wahrheiten und Vorurteile der Erfinder auf das Ansehen ihrer Lehrmeister annahmen und ihnen ewige Treue Schwuren.'' The ``nichts weniger als überdenken'' would ordinarily mean that ``they could not do anything but reflect''. But the context, for instance the first sentence cited in this note, makes the rendering ``they could not even do as much as reflect'' the only plausible one. This have been confirmed to me by native speaking Germans. Herder 1970E contains only the first of the two parts of Herder's essay, and so could give no help in this case.) [back to text]

7. Locke: Essay II.xxxiii.19, p.401: ``This was that, which, in the first general view I had of this Subject, was all that I though I should have to do: but upon a nearer approach, I find, that there is so close a connexion between Ideas and Words; and our abstract Ideas and general Words, have so constant a relation one to another, that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our Knowledge, which all consists of Propositions, without considering, first, the Nature, Use, and Signification of language; which therefore must be the business of the next Book.'' [back to text]

8. For additional evidence and places in Locke's Essay with relevance for this point: See Parret (1975). [back to text]

9. References to Condillac's Essai are normally indicated with parentheses within the text, containing the number of part, section, chapter in roman numerals separated by point, then comes the paragraph number indicated by the paragraph sign, and then the page numbers of the english translation (Condillac 1756) is added, after a comma. So (I.iii.iv, § 1, p. 104) means Condillac's Essai, Part I, section iii, chapter iv, paragraph 1, which is on page 104 in the english translation. References to the Introduction to the Essai are made with page number of the english translation. I have used the french edition indicated under references in my work, and only inserted the appropriate parts from the english translation as the last step in finishing the paper. I use the french spelling Essai to indicate Condillac's work, and the english Essay to indicate that of Locke's.[back to text]

10. For instance: ``With the essay on Breal and Saussure I arrived at the completion of my argument for the coherent tradition that reaches from the seventeenth century to the great figure who early in the present century agin made the study of language relevant to all other forms of intellectual life'' (Aarsleff 1982, p.17). For a more thorough criticism of Aarsleff, see Hacking 1988. [back to text]

11. The contents of the square brackets are taken from the French, lacking in the English 1756 translation. [back to text]

12. I hold ``possesses nothing but by an extrinsic virtue'' to mean that the soul is not capable of operating save by being influenced by physical causes from the external world. [back to text]

13. See Foucault 1970, ch. 8.iv, esp. pp.180-1, and Aarsleff's citation from Schleicher (Aarsleff 1982, p.16). In his writings from the 1820s, Wilhelm von Humboldt makes extensive use of the expression ``organic'' and ``organism'' in relation to language, for instance in Humboldt 1963, pp.6-7, p.27. [back to text]

14. This Foucault describes by saying that the transcendentals becomes situated with the object, which in this case is language (Foucault 1970, p.244) [back to text]
 
 

References

• Aarsleff, Hans. 1982. From Locke to Saussure. Essays on the study of language and intellectual history. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
• Condillac, E.B.de. 1982. ``Logic'', i Condillac: Philosophical Writings, trans. by Franklin Philip, Erlbaum, Hillsdale N.J.
• Condillac, E.B.de. Oeuvres Complètes, édition de Gaston de Paris, 1821-1822, Slatkine Reprints, Genève, 1970 (Essai is in vol. I, and Logique in vol. XV).
• Condillac, E.B.de. 1756. An Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, Being a Supplement to Mr.Lockes's Essay on the Human Understanding, Translated from the French of the Abbé de Condillac, Member of the Royal Academy of Berlin, by Mr. Nugent, J.Nourse, London, MDCCLVI.
• Derrida, Jacques. 1980. The Archeology of the Frivolous. Reading Condillac. London: Univ. of Nebraska Press.
• Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things, London: Tavistock. [Reprinted by Routledge 1991]
• Hacking, Ian. 1988. ``Locke, Leibniz, Language and Hans Aarsleff. pp.135--153 in Synthese, vol.75, no.2, May 1988.
• Herder, Johann Gottfried. 1770E. ``Essay on the origin of language'', in On the Origin of Language: Jean-Jacques Rousseau: `Essay on the Origin of Languages' and J.G.Herder:`Essay on the Origin of Language, Moran and Gode (trans. and ed.). London: University of Chicago Press. 1986.
• Herder, Johann Gottfried. 1770G. ``Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache'', in Johann Gottfried Herder's Sprachphilosophie. Ausgewahlte Schriften. Erich Heintel (ed.). Hamburg: Felix Meiner. 1975.
• Humboldt, Wilhelm von. 1963. Schriften zur Sprachphilosophie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellchaft.
• Locke, John. 1690. An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. P.Nidditch, Oxford U.P., 1975.
• Parret, Herman. 1975. Idéologie et sémiologie chez Locke et Condillac. La Question de l'Autonomie du language devant la pensée, Peter de Ridder Press, Lisse, Holland.
• Schmidt, Sigfried J. 1968. Sprache und Denken als sprachphilosophisches Problem von Locke bis Wittgenstein, Haag: Nijhoff.
• Taylor, Charles. 1985. Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers vol. I\/, Cambr. UP.Yolton, John W. (ed). 1995. The Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment, Oxford: Blackwell.

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