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See also: TRACY, See also:ANTOINE See also:- LOUIS
- LOUIS (804–876)
- LOUIS (893–911)
- LOUIS, JOSEPH DOMINIQUE, BARON (1755-1837)
- LOUIS, or LEWIS (from the Frankish Chlodowich, Chlodwig, Latinized as Chlodowius, Lodhuwicus, Lodhuvicus, whence-in the Strassburg oath of 842-0. Fr. Lodhuwigs, then Chlovis, Loys and later Louis, whence Span. Luiz and—through the Angevin kings—Hungarian
LOUIS See also:CLAUDE DESTUTT, See also:COMTE DE
(1754-1836), See also:French philosopher, son of a distinguished soldier, was See also:born in 'Bourbonnais on the loth of See also:July 1754. He belonged to a See also:noble See also:family of Scotch descent, tracing its origin to See also:Walter Stutt, who in 142o accompanied the earls of See also:Buchan and See also:Douglas to the See also:court of See also:France, and whose family afterwards See also:rose to be See also:counts of Tracy. He was educated at See also:home and at the university of See also:Strassburg, where he was chiefly noted for his athletic skill. He went into the See also:army, and when the Revolution See also:broke took an active See also:part in the provincial See also:assembly of Bourbonnais. He was elected a See also:deputy of the See also:nobility to the 'states-See also:general, where he sat alongside of his friend La Fayette. In the See also:spring of 1792 he received the See also:rank of manichal de See also:camp in command of the See also:cavalry in the army of the See also:north; but the See also:influence of the extremists becoming predominant he took indefinite leave of See also:absence, and settled at Auteuil, where, with See also:Condorcet and See also:Cabanis, he devoted himself to scientific studies. Under the Reign of Terror he was arrested and imprisoned for nearly a See also:year, during which he studied See also:Condillac and See also:Locke, and abandoned the natural sciences for See also:philosophy. On the See also:motion of Cabanis he was named See also:associate of the See also:Institute in the class of the moral and See also:political sciences. He soon began to attract See also:attention by the memoires which he read before his colleagues-papers which formed the first draft of his comprehensive See also:work on ideology. The society of " ideologists " at Auteuil embraced, besides Cabanis and Tracy, Constantin See also:Francois de Chassebceuf, Comte de See also:Volney and Dominique See also:Joseph See also:Carat (1749-1833), See also:professor in the See also:National Institute. Under the See also:empire he was a member of the See also:senate, but took little part in its deliberations. Under the Restoration he became a peer of France, but protested against the reactionary sprit of the See also:government, and remained in opposition. In 1808 he was elected a member of the French See also: Academy in See also:place of Cabanis, and if). 1832 he was also named a member of the Academy of Moral Sciences on its reorganization. He appeared, however, only once at its conferences, owing to his See also:age and to disappointment at the See also:comparative failure of his work. He died at See also:Paris on the 9th of See also:March 1836.
Destutt de Tracy was the last eminent representative of the sensualistic school which Condillac (q.v.) founded in France upon a one-sided See also:- INTERPRETATION (from Lat. interpretari, to expound, explain, inter pres, an agent, go-between, interpreter; inter, between, and the root pret-, possibly connected with that seen either in Greek 4 p4'ew, to speak, or irpa-rrecv, to do)
interpretation of Locke. He pushed the sensualistic
principles of Condillac to their last consequences, being in full agreement with the materialistic views of Cabanis, though the attention of the latter was devoted more to the physiological, that of Tracy to the psychological or " ideological " See also:side of See also:man. His ideology, he frankly stated, formed " a part of See also:zoology," or, as we should say, of See also:biology. To think is to feel. The four faculties into which he divides the conscious See also:life—See also:perception, memory, See also:judgment, will--are all varieties of sensation. Perception is sensation caused by a See also:present See also:affection of the See also:external extremities of the nerves; memory is sensation caused, in the absence of present excitation, by dispositions of the nerves which are the result of past experiences; judgment is the perception of relations between sensations, and is itself a See also:species of sensation, because if we are aware of the sensations we must be aware also of the relations between them; will he identifies with the feeling of See also:desire, and therefore includes it as a variety of sensation. It is easy to see that such conclusions ignore important distinctions, and are, indeed, to a large extent an abuse of See also:language. As a psychologist de Tracy deserves See also:credit for his distinction between active and passive See also:touch, which See also:developed into the theory of the See also:muscular sense. His See also: account of the notion of external existence, as derived, not from pure sensation, but from the experience of See also:action on the one See also:hand and resistance on the other, may be compared with the account of See also:Bain and later psychologists.
His See also:chief See also:works are Elements d'ideologie (1817–1818; 2nd ed.; 1824–'825), in which he presented the See also:complete statement of his earlier monographs; Commentaire sur l'esprit See also:des lois de See also:Montesquieu (1806; 5th ed., 1828; Eng. trans., See also:President See also:Jefferson, 1811); Essai sur le genie et See also:les ouvrages de Montesquieu (1808). See histories of philosophy, especially F. Picavet, Les Ideologues ells. V. and vi. (Paris, 1891), and La Philosophie de Biran (Academie des sci. more et pol., '889); G. H. See also:Lewes, Hist. of Phil.
End of Article: TRACY, ANTOINE LOUIS CLAUDE DESTUTT, COMTE
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