Prekursorzy performatywności. Język jako działanie u Étienne’a Bonnot de Condillaca i Jeana-Jacques’a Rousseau

Abstract

The present paper analyses the concept of the performativity of human language in the philosophical writings by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The first part of the text is devoted to the idea of langage d’action and its significance for Condillac‘s epistemology and theory of language; whereas the social and political functions of human speech, presented in the works of Jean- Jacques Rousseau, are interpreted in the second part of the paper. Ultimately, it seems that for both Condillac and Rousseau human language is not just a mere thinking tool, but also a way of changing and improving our reality.