biography
| name: |
La Mettrie, Julien Offroy de
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pronunciation:
[la metree]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1709–51)
|
| biography:
| Materialist, philosopher, and physician, born in St Malo, W France. He originally studied logic and theology but was persuaded to join the medical profession in 1725 and in 1742 became surgeon to the Guards in Paris. His work provoked great hostility, and following publication of L'Histoire naturelle de l'âme (1745, Natural History of the Soul), which argued that all psychological phenomena were the effects of organic changes in the nervous system, he was forced to move to Leyden in Holland. There he wrote his most famous work, L'Homme Machine (1748), which was widely condemned for its atheism and materialism. He fled to Berlin, and under the protection of Frederick the Great he produced other important works, including L'Homme plante (1748), Discours sur le bonheur (1750), and L'Art de jouir (1751). |
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