Abstract
We have seen that, for Tracy, all our ideas come from the perceptions furnished by our senses; simple ideas are those given immediately by the senses, and other ideas are formed by separating and recombining simple ideas in complex ways. Our multitude of ideas have been generated by a small number of mental processes. The faculty of thinking, upon closer inspection, is seen to be composed of four or more specialised faculties, all of which are modes of sensing or perceiving, and they account for all the activity of the mind.1
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Notes
Tracy, “Memoire de Berlin”, published by P. Tisserand in Revue philosophique de la France et de Tetranger, Vol. 116 (1933), at pp. 170–2.
Cf. K. Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach”, No. 6 (1845).
J. Locke, Second Treatise, section 25 ff: cf. Two Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett (New York, 1965), pp. 327 ff.
Cf. J.-J. Rousseau, “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” (1754), in The Social Contract and Discourses, trans. G.D.H. Cole (London, 1973), esp. pp. 64 ff.
For discussion of these writers’ views on sympathy, cf. G. Bryson, Man and Society: The Scottish Inquiry in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, 1945), esp. chapter 6; G. Morrow, “The significance of the doctrine of sympathy in Hume and A. Smith”, The Philosophical Review, vol. 32 (1923), pp. 60–78; R. Lamb, “A. Smith’s System: Sympathy not self- interest”, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 35 (1974), pp. 671–682.
Cf. A. Smith, Theorie des Sentimens Moraux, traduit de l’Anglais par S. Grouchy, Veuve Condorcet (Suivie de huit lettres sur la sympathie) (Paris, 1798 ), vol. II, p. 357.
Cf. G. Chinard, Jefferson et les idéologues, p. 209 (letter of Tracy to Jefferson, 22 February 1821 ).
Destutt de Tracy, De Vamour, trans. amp; ed. G. Chinard (Paris 1926): for the date of composition, see p. 33n.
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© 1985 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Head, B.W. (1985). Individuals and Social Relations. In: Ideology and Social Science. Archives Internationales D’Histoire Des Idees/International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 112. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5159-4_4
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