Julien Offray de La Mettrie

French physician and materialist philosopher of the 18th century

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About

Julien Offray de La Mettrie, born December 25, 1709 in Saint-Malo and died November 11, 1751 in Berlin, was a French physician and philosopher. After studying medicine at Reims and under Hermann Boerhaave at Leiden, he became a surgeon to the French Guards. Observing during a fever that mental states follow physiological changes, he developed a radical materialism. His work L'Homme machine (1747) caused a scandal and led to his exile in Berlin, where Frederick the Great protected him. He died there in 1751.

* 1709-12-12 — † 1751-11-11

Major works

Histoire naturelle de l'âme (1745)philosophical treatise
L'Homme machine (1747)philosophical treatise
L'Homme plante (1748)essay
Les Animaux plus que machines (1748)essay
Discours sur le bonheur (1751)essay

Key milestones

1745Publication of Natural History of the Soul, condemned to be burned, forcing him to leave Paris.
1747Publication of Man a Machine in Leiden, a materialist manifesto that led to his expulsion from the Dutch Republic.
1748Welcomed in Berlin by Frederick the Great, who appointed him court reader and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences.

Themes

MaterialismDeterminismAtheismHedonismMind and body

Sources: britannica.com · rep.routledge.com

“The human body is a machine which winds its own springs.”

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie

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“To be a machine, to feel, to think, to know how to distinguish good from evil, as well as blue from yellow, in a word, to be born with intelligence and a sure moral instinct, and to be only an animal, are therefore no more contradictory than to be an ape or a parrot and to be able to feel pleasure and pain.”

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie

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“The soul is but a vain term of which we have no idea, and which we ought to make use of only to signify the part in us that thinks.”

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie

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