biography
| name: |
Helvétius, Claude-Adrien
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pronunciation:
[elvaysyus]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1715–71)
|
| biography:
| Philosopher, born in Paris, France. He trained for a financial career, and in 1738 was appointed to the lucrative office of farmer-general. In 1751 he withdrew from public life to the family estate at Voré, where he spent the rest of his life in philosophy, and as host to the Philosophes, a group of French thinkers, including Diderot and d'Alembert with whom he was later to collaborate on the Encyclopédie. In 1758 he published the controversial De l'esprit (On the Mind), advancing the view that sensation is the source of all intellectual activity and that self-interest is the motive force of all human action. The book was promptly denounced by the Sorbonne and condemned by the parliament of Paris to be publicly burnt. As a result it was widely read, translated into all the main European languages and, together with his posthumous De l'homme (1772, On Man), greatly influenced Bentham and the British utilitarians. |
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