Julien Offray de La Mettrie | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 23 November 1709 |
| Died | 11 November 1751 (aged 41) |
| Alma mater | University of Rennes |
| Era | 18th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | French materialism |
Main interests | Mind–body problem |
Notable ideas | Mechanistic materialism |
Julien Offray de La Mettrie (French: [ɔfʁɛ də la metʁi]; November 23, 1709[1] – November 11, 1751) was a French physician and philosopher, and one of the earliest of the French materialists of the Enlightenment. He is best known for his 1747 work L'homme machine (Man a Machine).[2]
La Mettrie is most remembered for taking the position that humans are complex animals and no more have souls than other animals do. He considered that the mind is part of the body and that life should be lived so as to produce pleasure (hedonism). His views were so controversial that he had to flee France and settle in Berlin.
- ^ For La Mettrie's birth in literature one finds at least three different calendar dates; the date given here is most probably the right one. Cf.: Birgit Christensen: Ironie und Skepsis, Würzburg 1996, p. 245, fn. 2
- ^ The 1748 English translation bore the title Man a machine, but Ann Thomson, in her recent translation, chooses the title Machine Man (Thomson 1996)