Holbach, Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron of

HOLBACH, Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron of. - Philosopher, b. at Heidelsheim (Palatinate) in 1723, d. at Paris, where he had settled since his youth, on 21 Feb. 1789.

Author of various feeble and tedious works because of the crude materialism by which they are inspired, H. entrusted his name above all to the Système de la nature (London [in reality Amsterdam or Leiden] 1770), written in collaboration with others. His intellect, sometimes brilliant, more often is pedantic, always superficial. The thought of H., which is largely influenced by the debated doctrines of La Mettrie, of Diderot and of other minor exponents of French Enlightenment materialism, represents the crudest and most dogmatic expression of this materialism. Convinced that every form of spiritualism is «the fruit of a calculated and self-interested policy of theologians», H. can see in the world nothing other than a corpulent nature, subject to necessary and physically determinable laws. Matter and movement are the only constituent elements of the universe, of which no teleological interpretation is therefore possible. The so-called spiritual activities themselves represent nothing but some of the infinite modifications of material movement, while every concept of the Divinity demonstrates, according to H., its own evident absurdity (the true «fabricateurs de la divinité» are the theologians...). For a general assessment, v. MATERIALISMO.

Vittorio Sainati