Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Man is a machine: the soul is only the working of the body.
Life
French physician and philosopher (Saint-Malo 1709 - Berlin 1751), a materialist. His writings caused scandal and forced him to exile, first in Holland and then at the court of Frederick II of Prussia. In Man a Machine (1747) he argues that the soul depends entirely on the state of the body, and that the human being is a machine like animals.
Main works
Explains the phenomena of the soul by the organisation of the body.
Argues that man is a machine whose soul is only its working.
Defends an ethics of pleasure and treats remorse as an effect of bodily organisation.
In his own words
« Let us therefore conclude boldly that man is a machine, and that in the whole universe there is but one substance differently modified. »
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe grants that a supreme Being is probable but useless in practice, and sympathetically reports the idea of a happier atheist world; he is mostly read as a cautious atheist.
La Mettrie, L'Homme-machine (1747)
Only experience and observation must guide us in understanding man.
La Mettrie, L'Homme-machine (1747)
The soul is only a name for the working of the organised body: man is a machine.
La Mettrie, L'Homme-machine (1747)
If man is a machine, his acts follow from his organisation, not from a free soul.
La Mettrie, L'Homme-machine (1747)
Happiness, mostly pleasure and a clear conscience, is the aim of life; remorse is a prejudice to cure.
La Mettrie, Anti-Sénèque, ou Discours sur le bonheur (1748)