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(cité aussi par
Lavoisier)
L'Abbé de Condillac
The origin of knowledge.
Instead of observing things we wanted to know
about, we tried to imagine them. From false assumption to
false assumption, we got lost into a multitude of mistakes;
and as these errors became prejudices, we assumed they were
principles, thus we erred more and more. Then we could only
reason through those bad habits we had acquired. The art of
misusing words we didn't really understand became our way of
reasoning... When things have reached that point, when
errors have been piling up, the only way to reorder our
ability to think is to forget all that we have learned, to
go back to the origin of our ideas, to follow their
generation and to recreate, according to Bacon's words,
human understanding.
nous remercions Annick
Pourny pour cette traduction.
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