In the Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, Condillac argues that humans develop reason only once they have discovered the function of signs and the use of language in their encounters with others. Commentators like Hans Aarsleff and Charles Taylor believe that a precondition for this discovery is the presence of a special human capacity: the capacity to reflectively relate to what is given in experience. The problem with this claim is that it returns Condillac to a form of innatism from which he was keen to escape, because it assumes that human minds are reflective qua original endowment. I argue that Condillac attributed limited value to explanations based on the static analysis of innate natures and instead opted for a dynamic examination of developmental trajectories enabled through species-specific embodied experiences. Through this dynamic approach, he was able to do two things at once: explain how it is possible that human cognition is of a unique superior kind, while at the same time defending the view that humans are like any other species in that they form species-specific mental features through their experiential engagement with the contingent circumstances of life.

中文翻译：

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康迪拉克论为人：重新考虑语言和反思

在人类知识的来源随笔康迪拉克认为，人类只有在与他人接触时发现了符号的功能和语言的使用后，才会发展出理性。汉斯·阿尔斯莱夫 (Hans Aarsleff) 和查尔斯·泰勒 (Charles Taylor) 等评论家认为，这一发现的先决条件是存在一种特殊的人类能力：与经验中给予的事物进行反思相关的能力。这种说法的问题在于，它将康迪拉克带回了一种他渴望摆脱的先天主义形式，因为它假设人类的思想是反思性的原始禀赋。我认为康迪拉克将有限的价值归因于基于先天本性的静态分析的解释，而是选择了通过特定物种的具体体验实现的对发育轨迹的动态检查。通过这种动态方法，