Mar 14 2008
(Part 10) On the Fundamental Difficulties of the Philosophy of Condillac (Article 12)
Article 12
Conclusion on the intrinsic defect of the system of Condillac
97. In addressing myself thus far to Condillac, I have made use of what is known as the argumentum ad hominem. Lest, however, I should present him in a worse light than he deserves, I feel bound in justice to add here a few explanatory words on what I alleged against him in the last article. Indeed, I myself have already said something which may fairly be quoted in extenuation of his error; and i will state how.
Condillac, when giving his account of the formation of universal ideas, distinguishes ideas into two classes-the particular and the general (i.e. universal), and says that the particular are transformed into general through our using them as exemplars in that comparison through which we judge of individual things.
Now, I have shown, and this by Condillac’s own definitions, that the comparison in question has nothing whatever to do with making our ideas universal, but that the universality is intrinsic to their very nature. For Condillac says that an idea is “a sensation representative of something,” as is the case with those sensations which are preserved in our memory; and he says also that general ideas are those which serve us as exemplars. Now, to be representative and to be an exemplar is precisely the same. Therefore, according to Condillac himself, the character of universality is intrinsic to the nature of an idea.
The construction which we may equitably put on this seems to be that our author’s error on the formation of universal ideas consists, more than in anything else, in a wrong application of the words “how universal ideas are formed;” instead of which he should have said, “How we recognize and make use of the universality inherent in all ideas.”
If, then, the followers of Condillac were to own to this inaccuracy of expression, I should no longer have the right of insisting on the objection I was urging against them, and which was to this effect: “You cannot form universal ideas without making a judgment, and you cannot make a judgement without having a universal idea: this is a vicious circle, from which your system affords us no possible means of escape.” They could answer me: “We admit that it is inaccurate to say that our ideas are universal only from the moment of their being recognized and used as exemplars: they are universal from the very first, and the judgments which we make by means of them do not create their universality, but simply cause us to recognize its presence. Being, therefore, independent of these judgments, the universal ideas do not require to be preceded by them.”
98. But if the followers of Condillac may, by correcting the above inaccuracy of language, evade the cogency of my last argument, which is wholly relative to the man whom I was addressing, and based on that inaccuracy, the difficulty which I have pointed out as being contained in the inmost nature of their system still remains entire and unanswered; since it is impossible, on the one hand, to form an idea without a judgment intervening in the operation, and on the other, to form a judgment without some idea pre-existing in our mind; and this leaves the question in as great a perplexity as ever, or rather proves to evidence either that the system of Condillac is false, or else that the formation of ideas as well as judgments is inexplicable. (Excerpted from THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS by Blessed Antonio Rosmini. The text is in the public domain)
