Destutt de Tracy

Antoine Louis Claude Destutt, comte de Tracy (1754 – 1836) was a French Enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher who coined the term “ideology”. Although active in the Napoleonic government, he was important for his leadership of the ideologists, disciples of Condillac. This group contributed to such later psychological developments as the James-Lange theory of emotions. Starting from Condillac’s reduction of consciousness to the reception and combination of sensations, he developed a philosophy of education for post-Revolutionary France. ”