PART II: PHILOSOPHY

A Philosophical Review of the Successive Advances of the Human Mind

Turgot presents a brief outline of human progress. The fact that human beings have similar experiences does not imply that all nations ar alike. People have different abilities, and the results of individual genius may bring some cultures to the fore. The growth of knowledge is traced, with developments in Athens an early highlight. Turgot argues that we learn through the senses; like Hume, he holds that deductive knowledge is limited to showing the connections between ideas. Language is essential to knowledge, and Turgot warns that languages that develop first can become fixed and overly elaborate and impede knowledge. The contemporary age is one in which knowledge has developed more than ever before. Descartes was a pioneer in this recent growth, but Newton and Leibniz are the greatest modern thinkers.