O presente artigo pretende examinar as linhas gerais da crítica de Condillac à metafísica, tentando indicar os elos entre sua recusa dos grandes sistemas do século XVII e sua concepção de linguagem. Para tanto, parte-se do Tratado dos sistemas, onde essa crítica é empreendida de maneira intensiva e detalhista, para se chegar à teoria dos signos linguísticos, apresentada pelo filósofo no Ensaio sobre a origem dos conhecimentos humanos e retomada em obras subsequentes. A tese fundamental aqui é a de que, (...) aos olhos do abade, se os grandes filósofos da metafísica clássica equivocaram-se ao fundarem seus sistemas em “máximas abstratas” e “suposições da imaginação”, foi por terem sido induzidos a erro devido à própria natureza dos signos linguísticos. Se essa hipótese de leitura estiver correta, tanto esse diagnóstico quanto a chave para solução do problema dependeriam do exame da origem e dos progressos da linguagem, realizado por Condillac no Ensaio.AbstractThis paper intends to examine the general lines of Condillac’s critique of metaphysics, trying to indicate the links between his refusal of the great systems of the seventeenth century and his conception of language. It begins with a short presentation of the Treatise of Systems, where this criticism is undertaken intensively and in detail, and aims to arrive at the theory of linguistic signs presented by the philosopher in the Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledges and resumed in subsequent works. The fundamental thesis here is that, to Condillac, if the great philosophers of classical metaphysics were wrong to base their systems on “abstract maxims” and “assumptions of the imagination,” it was because they were misled by their own nature of the linguistic signs. If this reading hypothesis is correct, both this diagnosis and the key to solving the problem would depend on his examination of the origin and progress of language presented to the reader in his Essay.Key words: Metaphysics; Empiricism; Signs; Language; History of language. (shrink)

Nosso objetivo geral consiste em situar a filosofia moral de David Hume no debate iniciado pela publicação da Fábula das Abelhas de Bernard Mandeville. Pretende-se com isso, matizar a suposta filiação de Hume à filosofia moral de Francis Hutcheson, em especial, e às filosofias do senso moral de um modo geral. Para tanto, além de uma breve exposição das posições de Mandeville e Hutcheson, buscamos realizar uma análise mais detida da concepção humiana de juízo e sentimentos morais, de maneira a (...) indicar em que medida Hume se afasta e em que medida se aproxima das teses do filósofo holandês. Dessa forma pretende-se determinar a originalidade da solução de Hume para as questões postas pela obra de Mandeville. (shrink)

ABSTRACT By defending the general thesis that “private vices” were indispensable to obtaining “public benefits,” Bernard Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees provoked outraged reactions and earned its author the reputation of an enemy of virtue. Among the criticisms made against him, the one according to which he had cunningly used a rigorist conception of virtue to demonstrate the impossibility of any genuinely virtuous action stands out. Taking this criticism as a motto and trying to see to what extent it (...) can be pertinent or not, this paper intends to examine the thesis contained in the subtitle of the Fable considering the philosophical project in which it is inserted: that of an “anatomy of the invisible part of man”. From there, we hope it will be possible to indicate what questions The Fable of the Bees aims to answer and how it does answer them, what place it holds for morality, as well as which are the consequences of the Mandevillian critique of morals. (shrink)