Abstract

In this article, I propose to examine and explain Condillac's understanding of madness and the relationship between this phenomenon and the concept of the association of ideas and elements of physiology. To this end, I focus the scope of the investigation on two works by the French philosopher: the Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge (1746) and the Dictionary of Synonyms (1951). In the aforementioned texts, the philosopher mobilizes a conception of madness that is identified with the unruliness of reason. The departure from reason, the errors and deviations of reasoning find their explanatory key in the concept of the association of ideas and the way in which these are linked in the faculty of the imagination. However, within this explanation, there is an ambivalence about physiology and its role in shaping the experiences of madness. At times, the philosopher attributes relevance to arguments of a physiological nature in understanding the manifestations of madness, while at others he relativizes the importance of these arguments and the role of physiology in explaining these manifestations. Despite this hesitation, it has been established that Condillac's explanation takes the association of ideas as the cause of madness and does not dissociate it from a component of a physiological nature. Once the genesis of unruliness of reason has been identified, the philosopher ends up suggesting pedagogical care as an alternative to prevent madness and educate the human spirit.