Anik Waldow

This chapter examines Johann Gottfried Herder’s engagement with Condillac’s conception of the human animal, and more specifically Condillac’s claim that human cognition constitutes a more developed form of animal cognition. While agreeing with Condillac that central features of human cognition form through experience over time, such as having the capacities for reason and language, Herder argued that a special type of reflective awareness is needed to get this developmental process started. He thus cemented the species border as he made a natural endowment the criterion for assessing who can and cannot have reason. This chapter argues that instead of rejecting Condillac’s continuity thesis, Herder in fact developed it further. This becomes clear if seen in the wider context of his metaphysics of nature. He here explains that sustained developments in nature are able to transform the cognitive make-up of a species as a whole, which leads to a reconfiguration of the starting point from which each individual member embarks when starting species-specific developmental trajectories.

This chapter explores Rousseau’s and Herder’s reflections on naturally given moral sentiments to understand why they took moral abilities to be specifically human. This question arises because the claim that morality has its origin in natural feelings like sympathy and pity suggests that animals who are capable of these feelings should be granted moral abilities as well. Yet Rousseau and Herder, together with many other sen-timentalists, denied that animals are moral creatures. The chapter argues that in order to understand the reasons for this claim, we need to distinguish three different aspects of what it means to be a moral creature: (1) the origin of moral abilities, (2) the conditions under which they can be exercised, and (3) the question of who counts as a subject of moral concern. Reflections on the third aspect reveal that sympathy-based accounts of morality have exclusionary tendencies, which may benefit from a sustained effort to translate the perspective of radically different others into one’s own language.

The Enlightenment is often thought of as the ‘Age of Reason’, a period marked by enthusiasm for reasoned thought and its power to fight superstition and prejudices resulting from the influences of tradition and authority. What is less well known is that the Enlightenment is also a period during which it became increasingly clear that the practice of rational thought required experiential learning. This chapter examines three authors who reflected on the great potential of experiential learning: Hume, Rousseau and Herder. I show that for them, the ability to formulate well-grounded judgements required 1) an unprejudiced openness to responses caused by one’s interactions with the world; and 2) an imaginative and affective enagegement with other people. In this orientation, I argue, experiential learning reveals its distinctly moral dimension in addition to more commonly acknowledged epistemic benefits, as it seeks to provide practical guidance in negotiating the normative demands of human life.

This chapter examines Buffier’s critique of Descartes’s cogito argument to show that for him self-knowledge has an important social dimension. This is not merely so because qua bodily existence humans integrate into a world where they meet others in their social interactions and, therefore, need to step beyond the inner sphere of their own thoughts to know about their place among them. What is central to the argument presented here is the idea that knowing oneself as a thinking thing requires knowing that one is capable of rational thought. For Buffier, this kind of knowledge requires the self to locate its own practice of thought among people who are cognitively similar. Common sense provides this kind of knowledge and thus turns into an important source of self-knowledge. More generally, Buffier’s account offers two related insights: 1) that self-knowledge remains rather limited when based on the survey of one’s inner thoughts; and 2) that norms of rationality are constructed insofar as they depend on commonly accepted ways of practicing thought.

This article examines Hume's infamous racist footnote by placing it in the context of his reflections on contempt and classificatory issues surrounding questions of dehumanisation and monstrosity. The aim of this is to show that it is precisely because contempt motivated Hume's deprecating views about non-White people that he remained oblivious to the fact that the footnote was inconsistent with his broader philosophical commitments and explanatory strategies concerning the context-dependence of human life. More generally, this analysis reveals that contempt is a passion that tends to confirm itself by rendering the mind blind to the deficiencies of its own thinking. Diagnosing this problem in Hume does not serve as an excuse for his racism but aims to provide resources for identifying strategies to address contempt-driven prejudices in one's own thinking.

This volume ventures into the largely unexplored territory of Claude Buffier’s philosophical contributions to early modern thought, unlocking the complexity of his ideas while situating him within the broader context of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy. Instead of arguing that the foundation of all knowledge is grounded in either rational speculation or empirical observation, Buffier proposes a “third way”: his appeal to common sense seeks to show that, when we have exhausted all the justifications for our claims to knowledge, the bedrock where our spades are turned is the irreducible social and emotional dimension of our epistemic practices. The book focuses on three key aspects of Buffier’s writings. Part I explores central tenets of Buffier’s philosophy of common sense. Part II reflects on his metaphysics of the self, identity, and duration. Part III examines Buffier’s thought on social life, with chapters on his conceptions of freedom, social order, and the equality of the sexes. While focusing on arguments and claims central to Buffier’s thought, all chapters seek to place him in his intellectual context by tracing the positions which he responded to and those he built on.

This chapter provides an introduction to Buffier’s philosophy of common sense. It situates Buffier in his philosophical context and discusses central principles of his account of first truths and commitment to a sentiment-based theory of knowledge that is grounded in an essentially social epistemic disposition. Studying Buffier’s philosophy, this chapter argues, contributes to widening our understanding of the main philosophical issues in the early modern period and sheds valuable new light on how alternatives to Cartesianism and Locke’s philosophy could develop.

As part of recent endeavours to show Buffier’s significant influence on key philosophical debates, this chapter examines the relation between Buffier and Hume by focusing on their discussions of the identity of objects and selves. It will first be argued that Buffier’s views are the specific target of Hume’s famous sceptical argument in the first paragraphs of his section “Of Personal Identity” in A Treatise of Human Nature. Secondly, we will demonstrate that Hume shares Buffier’s view that we have an intimate experience of our own self, but differs radically from the Jesuit philosopher in interpreting that sentiment intime. Finally, we will claim that Hume used Buffier’s arguments regarding the confusion involved in our ascriptions of identity to objects in order to show, contra Buffier, that the same confusion is in play in our ascriptions of personal identity.

This chapter investigates how some of the conceptual distinctions developed by Stephen Gaukroger in his analysis of reconciliatory strategies marking the establishment of natural philosophy in The Emergence of a Scientific Culture can be used to better comprehend challenges resulting from an increased influence of religious doctrines in the political sphere and the spread of a certain brand of fanaticism associated with science scepticism and an uncritical acceptance of dubious knowledge claims. By focussing on what he calls assimilation and amalgamation, I provide reflections on the strategic value of sceptical arguments in the transformation and protection of established knowledge practices. I use this discussion to explore to what extent intellectual humility and trust can help to mitigate conflicting sets of beliefs to establish the benefits of a domain-specific knowledge pluralism.

This article investigates Celermajer’s claim that facing the threat of climate change requires us to ‘philosophise in the face of the world’. I argue that in addition to developing new conceptualisations, as Celermajer proposes, the task is to outline measures and practices that can render innovative conceptualisations salient enough to have transformational impact. I contend that to achieve transformational impact a better understanding of the intricate link between imagination, affect, and concepts, and the way in which they jointly enable, but also foreclose, certain types of experience, is needed.

This book collects a variety of short essays on Stephen Gaukroger’s thought, by leading scholars, both senior and junior. Stephen Gaukroger (1950–2023) was one of the preeminent specialists of early modern science and philosophy, particularly their interrelations including under the heading ‘natural philosophy’, on the international scene, since the 1980s, starting with his prominent Cartesian scholarship (and biography) and moving towards the formidable 4-volume series on science and the shaping of modernity (from Emergence of a Scientific Culture to Civilization and the Culture of Science), dealing not just with early modernity but with the Enlightenment, German Romanticism and 20th-century society. This volume covers the thought of this highly-recognized scholar and engages with his works covering early modern philosophy, enlightenment, and contemporary periods, making it a must-read for any philosopher and historian of science.

This volume explores the philosophy of Étienne Bonnot de Condillac. It presents, for the first time, English-language essays on Condillac's philosophy, making the complexity and sophistication of his arguments and their influence on early modern philosophy accessible to a wider readership. Condillac's reflections on the origin and nature of human abilities, such as the ability to reason, reflect and use language, took philosophy in distinctly new directions. This volume showcases the diversity of themes and methods inspired by Condillac's work. The chapters are divided into four thematic sections. Part 1 highlights themes and discussions that were central to Condillac's own philosophical thinking, thus laying the ground for the subsequent discussions that trace Condillac's influence in the 19th century and beyond. Part 2 focuses on the different ways in which Condillac's philosophy has been taken up, criticised and further developed in France. Part 3 discusses thinkers working in other European countries and parts of the world who took up Condillac's work. Finally, Part 4 looks at the practical applications of Condillac's philosophy in a variety of different fields, such as economics, psychology, psychopathology and deaf studies. Condillac and His Reception will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on early modern philosophy, history of science and intellectual history.

In the Port-Royal Logic, Arnauld and Nicole argue that eloquence plays a crucial role in the cultivation of the art of thinking. In this essay, we demonstrate that Arnauld and Nicole's reflections on eloquence exemplify the need to reconceive the larger framework in which Cartesian theories of ideas operate. Instead of understanding epistemic agents as solitary thinkers who pursue their intellectual goals without the influence of others, our analysis shows that for Arnauld and Nicole thinking well was an intersubjective discursive activity that unfolds between complexly organized persons. Central to this activity is the ability to gauge the affective and associative tendencies of interlocutors and to communicate accordingly. This ability is required to enable speakers to deal constructively with problems arising from the context sensitivity of language, the influences of the passions, and the audience's capacity to decipher meaning in the communication of ideas that facilitate understanding and knowledge. By drawing attention to communication, affect, and association in the Port-Royal Logic, we show that there is a significant connection between thinking and expressing oneself well in the early modern period.

In the Port‐Royal Logic, Arnauld and Nicole argue that eloquence plays a crucial role in the cultivation of the art of thinking. In this essay, we demonstrate that Arnauld and Nicole's reflections on eloquence exemplify the need to reconceive the larger framework in which Cartesian theories of ideas operate. Instead of understanding epistemic agents as solitary thinkers who pursue their intellectual goals without the influence of others, our analysis shows that for Arnauld and Nicole thinking well was an intersubjective discursive activity that unfolds between complexly organized persons. Central to this activity is the ability to gauge the affective and associative tendencies of interlocutors and to communicate accordingly. This ability is required to enable speakers to deal constructively with problems arising from the context sensitivity of language, the influences of the passions, and the audience's capacity to decipher meaning in the communication of ideas that facilitate understanding and knowledge. By drawing attention to communication, affect, and association in the Port‐Royal Logic, we show that there is a significant connection between thinking and expressing oneself well in the early modern period.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reply to My CriticsExperience Embodied: Early Modern Accounts of the Human Place in NatureAnik Waldow (bio)I would like to thank Dario Perinetti and Hynek Janoušek for their thoughtful comments and the time and effort they invested into my work. Their reflections drive attention to important questions and make helpful suggestions about how some of the arguments of the book can be further developed and clarified. In what follows, I will first discuss the proposal to distinguish between a narrow and a broad sense of experience, then specify how I understand the connection between having a body and being able to engage in experiences. In this context, I will also discuss Janoušek’s suggestion to draw further distinctions between the different senses in which the concept of body relates to experience in Descartes and Hume. In the last section, I address the question of whether the focus on bodies risks undermining the claim that experience is intersubjectively constituted.1. Narrow versus Broad Concept of ExperienceDario Perinetti raises the worry that during the early modern period, and even before, the concept of experience was mainly used to discuss epistemological questions, and that therefore the Broad Experience Thesis fails. According to this thesis, it is reductive to think of experience in exclusively epistemological terms, since this ignores that many early modern writers approached questions about the benefits and dangers of experience from a wider moral perspective. This perspective, as I argue in [End Page 329] Experience Embodied, was concerned with the training of the mind’s intellectual and moral capacities, the role of pleasure and pain (and other affects) in epistemic and moral judgement, and, more generally, the question of how it is possible to be self-determined agents who do more than simply respond to the experiences they have.To support his claim, Perinetti cites the Historische Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Cauvin’s Lexicon Rationale sive Thesaurus Philosophicus, but also Aristotle, Bacon, and Hobbes. The approach I pursue in my book is based on the usage of the concept of experience by the authors examined (Descartes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Herder, Kant). I will turn to the analysis of this usage in a moment, but before this let me say a few words about dictionaries.It is in principle not surprising that a dictionary like the Historische Wörterbuch der Philosophie—and its discussion of Aristotle, Bacon, and Hobbes—supports the traditional approach to experience as a centrally epistemological concept. Its entry on “experience” revolves around the idea that philosophers are either empiricists or rationalists.1 Yet it is precisely the establishment of this distinction that has substantially contributed to promoting a reductive concept of experience. After all, rationalism and empiricism are labels typically used to describe competing epistemological positions.2 It is also worth noting that the dictionary’s entry is from the 1970s. Because of this, it operates with a picture of the history of philosophy that has long been challenged by studies that show that there is far more to early modern philosophy than the standard works of some selected canonical figures.3 When dealing with Locke, the entry for instance exclusively focuses on An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and does not even mention that experience is a key concept in Some Thoughts Concerning Education.The rather short and general entry on experience in Chauvin’s Lexicon Philosophicum (1692) is not very telling either—at least not if treated in isolation from other dictionaries and encyclopedias of the period, such as D’Alembert and Diderot’s Encylopédie: a tremendously influential work, that, according to its editors, is in itself committed to the Baconian method.4 And here César Chesneau Du Marsais’s entry on experience straightforwardly highlights the moral dimension of the knowledge acquired through experience:Experience, abstract term, commonly means the knowledge acquired through a long life, combined with the reflections made on what one has seen, and on the good and bad that has happened to us. In this sense, reading history is a highly profitable way of gaining experience; it tells us of events, and shows us the good or bad repercussions and consequences of these events.5The...

This volume explores the philosophy of Étienne Bonnot de Condillac. It presents, for the first time, English-language essays on Condillac's philosophy, making the complexity and sophistication of his arguments and their influence on early modern philosophy accessible to a wider readership. Condillac's reflections on the origin and nature of human abilities, such as the ability to reason, reflect and use language, took philosophy in distinctly new directions. This volume showcases the diversity of themes and methods inspired by Condillac's work. The chapters are divided into four thematic sections. Part 1 highlights themes and discussions that were central to Condillac's own philosophical thinking, thus laying the ground for the subsequent discussions that trace Condillac's influence in the 19th century and beyond. Part 2 focuses on the different ways in which Condillac's philosophy has been taken up, criticised and further developed in France. Part 3 discusses thinkers working in other European countries and parts of the world who took up Condillac's work. Finally, Part 4 looks at the practical applications of Condillac's philosophy in a variety of different fields, such as economics, psychology, psychopathology and deaf studies. Condillac and His Reception will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on early modern philosophy, history of science and intellectual history.

In the Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, Condillac argues that humans develop reason only once they have discovered the function of signs and the use of language in their encounters with others. Commentators like Hans Aarsleff and Charles Taylor believe that a precondition for this discovery is the presence of a special human capacity: the capacity to reflectively relate to what is given in experience. The problem with this claim is that it returns Condillac to a form of innatism from which he was keen to escape, because it assumes that human minds are reflective qua original endowment. I argue that Condillac attributed limited value to explanations based on the static analysis of innate natures and instead opted for a dynamic examination of developmental trajectories enabled through species-specific embodied experiences. Through this dynamic approach, he was able to do two things at once: explain how it is possible that human cognition is of a unique superior kind, while at the same time defending the view that humans are like any other species in that they form species-specific mental features through their experiential engagement with the contingent circumstances of life.

This essay argues that Humean impressions are triggers of associative processes, which enable us to form stable patterns of thought that co-vary with our experiences of the world. It will thus challenge the importance of the Copy Principle by claiming that it is the regularity with which certain kinds of sensory inputs motivate certain sets of complex ideas that matters for the discrimination of ideas. This reading is conducive to Hume’s account of perception, because it avoids the impoverishment of conceptual resources so typical for empiricist theories of meaning and explains why ideas should be based on impressions, although impressions cannot be known to mirror matters of fact. Dieser Aufsatz argumentiert dafür, dass humesche Eindrücke Auslöser von assoziativen Prozessen sind, welche es uns ermöglichen, stabile Denkmuster zu bilden, die mit unseren Erfahrungen der Welt kovariant sind. Der Aufsatz stellt somit die Wichtigkeit des Kopien-Prinzips in Frage, nämlich dadurch, dass behauptet wird, für die Unterscheidung der Ideen sei die Regelmäßigkeit maßgeblich, mit der gewisse Arten von sensorischen Eingaben gewisse Mengen von komplexen Ideen motivieren. Diese Lesart trägt zu einem Verständnis von Humes Auffassung der Wahrnehmung bei, da sie die Verarmung der begrifflichen Mittel, die für empiristische Theorien der Bedeutung so typisch ist, vermeidet und erklärt, warum Ideen auf Eindrücken basieren sollten, obwohl Eindrücke nicht als Abbildungen von Tatsachen erkannt werden können.

By investigating conceptions of experience from Descartes to Kant, this book shows that one of the central questions of the early-modern period was how humans can instantiate in their actions the principles of rational moral agency, while at the same time responding with their bodies to the causal play of nature. Through the analysis of this question, the book draws attention to the bodily underpinnings of the ability to experience thoughts and feelings. It thus challenges overly subjectivist interpretations that concentrate on the inner realm of the experiencing mind and because of this fail to account for the worldly dimension of being experientially responsive to the affections of the body.