Representations of the Body and Self-knowledge: Condillac’s Treatise on Sensations and Contemporary Naturalistic Psychology.
Abstract
Condillac’s Treatise on Sensations constitutes a spectacular departure from Locke
and expounds an original philosophy of consciousness and self-consciousness.
Although there are other readings of the Treatise, this chapter sets out to investigate the relevance of the correspondence between Condillac’s analysis and
contemporary naturalistic theories for his theses. Putting to one side Condillac’s
principle of the sentiment-based logical “generation” of the faculties, which is alien
to post-Darwinism, I will consider the different forms of self-knowledge identified
by Condillac as conditions of the emergence of self-consciousness. The aim of this is
to establish a criterion for self-knowledge. By cross-referencing and translating two
languages, two eras and two traditions, the chapter will then proceed to the
discussion of arguments and claims shared by Condillac and contemporary
naturalists: first, the thesis that only human beings have self-consciousness; second,
that humans share elementary self-relations with animals; and, third, that
representations of one’s own body are essential to self-consciousness formation.
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