NOCTUA

La tradizione filosofica dall’antico al moderno

History of Philosophy from the Ancient to the Modern Age




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Autore / Author: Diego Donna

Affiliazione / Author affiliation: Università di Bologna

Titolo / Title: Comment sortir du labyrinthe. Condillac critique de Spinoza, entre mos geometricus et Langue des calculs

Abstract: The present article proposes to study Condillac’s analysis of Spinoza’s Ethics, against the background of the more general criticism that the French abbot makes of the seventeenth-century logique de système. From the Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines to the Traité des systèmes to the later texts (Grammaire, Logique, Langue des calculs), Condillac’s theory and critique of systems are crossed by two components: on the one hand, the search for the sensory origin of ideas, that Condillac radicalizes in his Traité des sensations into a theory of knowledge as a ‘transformed sensation’. On the other hand, an operative logic of signs, which from the Essai to the works subsequent to the Traité des sensations translates sensibility into a knowledge, or a ‘well-made language’, whose logic is calculation. My objective is to clarify how the new ‘systematic spirit’, repeatedly invoked by the abbot, departs from the ‘bad metaphysics’ that he claims to liquidate. The comparison with the Spinozist system will be illuminating: in his treatise on the metaphysical systems of the seventeenth century Condillac proposes a critical analysis of the ‘geometrical spirit’; in his latest work, La langue des calculs, he proposes a new logic to which he assigns the task of bringing together the abstract and the concrete, beyond the ruins of classical metaphysics. The ‘systematic spirit’ and ‘spirit of system’ will be revealed, in spite of Condillac’s efforts, as being much closer to what it appears at first sight.

Keywords: Calculation; Étienne Bonnot de Condillac; logic; Spinoza; system.

English title: How to Get Out of the Labyrinth. Condillac as a Critic of Spinoza, Between Mos Geometricus and Langue des calculs

DOI: 10.14640/NoctuaIV6

Anno / Volume: IV

Fascicolo / Issue: 1-2

Pagine / Pages: 152-180

Pubblicazione / Publication date: 15/06/2017

Permalink: https://dx.doi.org/10.14640/NoctuaIV6




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