ABSTRACT
This chapter questions the thesis of a reception of Condillac by the Abbé de L’Épée. It aims to establish, first of all, that such a reception does not exist: the pedagogy of the “gratuitous teacher of the deaf and dumb” is no more indebted to Condillac than to any of the other philosophers of the Enlightenment. This chapter then shows that, through the paradoxical influence of his teacher, Adrien Geffroy, together with what he learned from his deaf pupils, L’Épée developed a pedagogy that resonates with Condillac’s philosophy. As such, L’Épée is fully a man of the Enlightenment. The present chapter finally demonstrates that reception occurred in the other direction: Condillac read L’Épée and concluded that there were not one but two “languages of action”—the second constituting a sign language that all human beings once spoke. Through the mediation of the pedagogue and his pupils, and by overcoming a few errors of appreciation, Condillac thus came to rethink the status of L’Épée’s famous “methodical signs” and to reverse the traditional hierarchy between the language of deaf people and spoken language. This finally led him to challenge several prejudices about deafness, which are still relevant today.
