CONDILLAC, Étienne de. Traité des sensations, à Madame la co - Lot 35

CONDILLAC, Étienne de. Traité des sensations, à Madame la comtesse de Vassé, published in London and Paris by de Bure l'aîné in 1754, in 2 volumes of In octavo / In-8 format (165x105mm). Marbled fawn calf, boards with simple cold framing, ribbed spines decorated with gilt caissons. Red edges. Bound in contemporary style. 2 ff.n.ch., VI, 345 pages; 3 ff.n.ch., 355 pages, 1 p.n.ch. and 1 ff.n.ch. Binding slightly rubbed (head and neck), two snags in volume I, horizontal tears in the lower margin of the endpapers, some light and scattered dampening in the lower margin of the leaves without affecting the text. First edition of this treatise, surely one of Condillac's most important and influential. Over the course of its four parts, Condillac established himself as one of the major, if not the only, French exponents of empiricism. Unlike his British, Arab and Greek precursors, Condillac asserts that all knowledge comes from sensation and that, in fact, judgment is nothing other "than sensation itself, which is transformed differently", thus transforming his empiricism into sensualism (even if this term post-dates the book's publication by several decades). Two handwritten comments in brown ink in the lower margin of volume II (pp. 205 and 215). Tchermerzine, III, 477. A copy in contemporary binding, in good condition.