La Mettrie: Machine Man and Other Writings

Description

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-51), author of Man a Machine (1747), was the most uncompromising of the materialists of the eighteenth century, and the provocative title of his work ensured it a succes de scandale in his own time. This fully annotated edition presents a new English translation of the text together with the most important of La Mettrie's other philosophical works, translated into English for the first time. Ann Thomson's introduction examines his aims and the scandalous moral consequences which he drew from his materialism.

'The present volume is a welcome addition intended for use by other readers interested in philosophy, the history of science, the history of theology and the history of ideas. A. Thomson provides a good general introduction setting La Mettrie in the context of eighteenth-century thought ... All the texts produced here benefit from useful notes. The brief annotations on them in the footnotes are complemented by a chronology of La Mettrie and an excellent bibliography.' British Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies