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Introduction

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Abstract

“Je ne doute pas que la postérité ne lui marque une place distinguée parmi les meilleurs raisonneurs et les plus profonds métaphysiciens de son siècle.”1 This prophecy of Rousseau’s has been only partially fulfilled. It serves to underline the contrast between the high esteem in which Condillac was held by his contemporaries and the comparative neglect into which he has fallen to-day.2 Many historians of eighteenth-century ideas either dismiss him summarily as a disciple of Locke and comment briefly on his best known work, the Traité des sensations, ignoring all the others, or they do not mention him at all.3 A disciple of Locke he certainly was, but he was much more than that, as even a fairly superficial familiarity with his works will show.

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References

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© 1979 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers bv, The Hague

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McNiven Hine, E. (1979). Introduction. In: A Critical Study of Condillac’s Traité des Systèmes. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idees/International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 93. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9291-7_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9291-7_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-009-9293-1

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