Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Archetype: Materialist of Experience
1709 to 1751 · Saint-Malo, France
“The human body is a machine that winds its own springs.”
Do you think like Julien Offray de La Mettrie? Answer 44 to 132 statements and find out who, among 130 thinkers, has the way of thinking closest to yours.
Who was Julien Offray de La Mettrie
A French physician, La Mettrie scandalized Europe by claiming that the human being is a machine and that the soul is nothing more than a function of the body. Persecuted in France and the Netherlands, he found refuge at the court of Frederick II in Berlin. He also defended an ethics of guilt-free pleasure, against the austere morality of the Stoics.
Core ideas
- Thought and feelings are products of the organization of the body and brain
- There is no immaterial soul: the human being is an animal, only more complex than the others
- Happiness lies in pleasure, and the guilt imposed by traditional morality only causes suffering
The tradition: Enlightenment materialism
Enlightenment materialism explained the mind and morality through matter, without appeal to God or the soul. La Mettrie is its most radical representative, for reducing man to a machine and defending pleasure.
Learn more: Wikipedia
Books by Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Three ways in. Start with the first.
Where Julien Offray de La Mettrie stands on the 11 axes
Each axis runs from the first pole (−1) to the second (+1). These are the positions the test compares with your answers.
