From Intimate Sentiment to Pure Self-Consciousness
Udo Thiel
Claude Buffier May 12, 2026 DOI: 10.1093/9780197751398.003.0008 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
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| Key points | The essay argues that Buffier and Lelarge de Lignac grounded human knowledge in intimate sentiment while critically engaging Locke's theory of personal identity, linking the self to an immaterial soul. It contends that Lignac's account of intimate sense as a "pure" sens fondamental foreshadows later eighteenth-century theories of self-consciousness that do not require a metaphysical commitment to an immaterial soul. |
Abstract
Abstract According to Buffier, intimate sentiment is the basis of all human knowledge, and this idea is developed further and in more detail in the writings of Lelarge de Lignac, for whom intimate sentiment or intimate sense is a “pure” sens fondamental. This essay analyzes and critically evaluates their respective accounts of intimate sentiment, considered as contributions to the eighteenth-century debates about self-consciousness and personal identity. Both Buffier and Lignac critically engage with Locke’s philosophy and with his theory of personal identity in particular, linking the notion of a sentiment intime or sens intime to the idea of the self as an immaterial thinking substance or soul. Lignac’s account, however, foreshadows developments in later eighteenth-century theories that do not involve a metaphysical commitment to an immaterial soul.