Also known as:
French: Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Lamettrie
LA METTRIE, JULIEN-OFFROY de. - Physician and philosopher, b. at St-Malo on 25 Dec. 1709, d. at Berlin on 11 Nov. 1751. He was a military physician in Paris from 1742. Risking the Bastille for his work Histoire naturelle de l'âme (The Hague 1745), he took refuge with Frederick II. His other works are: L'Homme machine (Leiden 1748), L'Homme plante (Potsdam 1748) and Réflexions sur l'origine des animaux (Berlin 1750).
La Mettrie is among the most conscious theorists of eighteenth-century materialism. Organized matter contains within itself a principle of movement that differentiates it, and the various degrees of animal life derive from the degree of this differentiation. Thought is only a property of organized matter (as, for example, electricity is); every activity is created by need (man, having more needs than other beings, occupies the highest point of evolution); every eudemonistic solution arises only from atheism. Every relationship of associated life is also [freed] from spiritual resolutions: for La Mettrie materialism is the only antidote to misanthropy.
Bibliography4 worksJ. E. Poritzky, J. O. de La M. Sein Leben und seine Werke, Berlin 1900; E. Bergmann, Die Satiren des Herrn Machine, Leipzig 1913; R. Boissie
BIBL.: J. E. Poritzky, J. O. de La M. Sein Leben und seine Werke, Berlin 1900; E. Bergmann, Die Satiren des Herrn Machine, Leipzig 1913; R. Boissier, La M., Paris 1931; G. F. Tuloup, Un précurseur méconnu. O. de La M., médecin-philosophe, Dinard 1938.
Petrocchi, Massimo. “La Mettrie, julien-offroy de.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII, col. 863. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/la-mettrie-julien-offroy-de.
MLA
Petrocchi, Massimo. “La Mettrie, julien-offroy de.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, col. 863. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/la-mettrie-julien-offroy-de.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec7_la_mettrie_julien_offroy_de,
author = {Petrocchi, Massimo},
title = {La Mettrie, julien-offroy de},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VII},
pages = {863},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/la-mettrie-julien-offroy-de}
}
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