Condillac's Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, first published in French in 1746 and offered here in a new translation, represented in its time a radical departure from the dominant conception of the mind as a reservoir of innately given ideas. Descartes had held that knowledge must rest on ideas; Condillac turned this upside down by arguing that speech and words are the origin of mental life and knowledge. His work influenced many later philosophers, and also anticipated Wittgenstein's view of language and its relation to mind and thought.

This volume presents a selection of slightly revised versions of papers from the third International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS III), Princeton, 1984. The papers are organized under the following headings: I Generalia; II Classical Period; III Medieval Period; IV Renaissance; V 17th Century; VI 18th Century; VII 19th Century, and VIII 20th Century.Contributors include W. Keith Percival, Aron Dotan, Michael G. Carter, Kees Versteegh, Brian O Cuiv, Francis P. Dinneen, Manuel Breva-Claramonte, Douglas A. Kibbee, Joseph L. Subbiondo, Rudiger Schreyer, Marc Wilmet,...