Discours philosophiques sur l'homme considéré rélativement à l'état de nature, & à l'état de Société. Par P.G.B.
Turin: Frères Reycends, 1769. Likely first edition, though Cioranescu states that the book first appeared in 1768. We have not been able to locate an earlier edition. Binding soiled. Ink ownership mark on title-page, rubberstamp with crown on title-page. A very good copy. Original boards, uncut. Rebacked in board. Quarto. xii, 260, [1, errata] pp. Item #12367
Gerdil (1718-1802) was born in Savoy. He became professor of philosophy at Turin in 1749 and preceptor to the Prince of Piedmont, afterwards Charles Emanuel IV. He became a cardinal in 1777, and, soon after, prefect of the Propaganda. His works extend to twenty volumes in a 1806 collected works. He wrote refutations of both Locke and Rousseau in L’immaterialité de l'ame demontrée contre M. Locke, 1747 and Reflexions sur la théorie, & la pratique de l’education contre les principes de Mr. Rousseau, 1763. The latter work was translated into English in 1765. The present work is a more general work on the nature of man and his place in the world. He again argues adamantly against “L’Auteur d’Emile,” and he also discusses the ideas of Hobbes and Hume. OCLC notes six copies: Yale, Florida, Chicago, Princeton, Alberta, and Queens University, Ontario. Conlon adds copies at the British Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale, and the municipal libraries of Chambéry, and Pau.
Conlon, Ouvrages français relatifs a Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 472.
Price: $750.00