«In illo tempore»: Condillac, Rousseau and Beauzée on the origins of language

Abstract

the ideas of Condillac and Rousseau on the origin of language may be fairly taken as a representative of the French enlightenment philosophy of the subject. the main scope of this paper is intended to examine the assumption or the hypothesis that language is a human invention according to Condillac. Usually eighteenth Century philosophers believed it is important to study the origin of language because it tended to lay open some of the first principles of human nature, and one of them, shared by Condillac and Rousseau as well (although in a negative sense), is the idea that the primary purpose of human language is social. Lastly, I add the Beauzée’s traditional point of view. Beauzée was in favor of the divine origin of language.