Abstract

This study focuses on the cognitive and semiotic works of Etienne Bonnot, abbe de Condillac . However, unlike conventional studies on Condillac, which examine his cognitive semiotics merely in terms of the metaphysics of logical method, this study will undertake to explore the relationship between the abbe's cognitive semiotics and his metaphysics of the human soul. It is my contention that this relationship revolves around an inherent contradiction in Condillac's system of thought, which, rather than undermining his system, paradoxically serves as the glue which holds Condillacian discourse together. ;In essence, Condillac adopts the Cartesian dualist conception of man, holding that man is composed of a material, feeling body and a spiritual, rational soul. Condillac also holds, however, that language is the basis of all reasoning and that reasoning is the foundation of morality. It is this line of thinking that makes Condillac's view of the soul problematic, since this moral agency is what makes the soul immortal for Condillac, such that, in essence, the very existence of the soul, for the abbe, depends upon man's capacity for language. And yet, Condillac shows us that language evolves naturally over time from purely bodily functions, rendering the existence of the soul entirely dependent upon the body---a contradiction inconsistent with the Cartesian dualism adopted by Condillac. ;This contradiction does not destroy the abbe's philosophy of man, metaphysics and semiotics, but rather strengthens it. In the final analysis, what this study brings to Condillacian studies is the demonstration that this apparent contradiction itself is actually what allows Condillac's discourse of the progress and perfectibility of man---a discourse which pervades the abbe's thinking from start to finish---to stand as a coherent and cohesive philosophical system