French materialism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
![The Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck, was an automaton in the form of duck, created by Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739. Voltaire wrote that "without [...] the duck of Vaucanson, you have nothing to remind you of the glory of France." ("Sans...le canard de Vaucanson vous n'auriez rien qui fit ressouvenir de la gloire de la France.") This is often misquoted as "Without the shitting duck, we would have nothing to remind us of the glory of France."](/Image:Duck_of_Vaucanson.jpg)
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French materialism is the name given to a handful of French 18th century philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment, many of them clustered around the salon of Baron d'Holbach. Although there are important differences between them, all of them were materialists who believed that the world was made up of a single substance, matter, the motions and properties of which could be used to explain all phenomena.
French materialism combined the associationist psychology and Empiricism of John Locke with the Totality of Isaac Newton to create a complex world view in diametrical opposition to the Cartesian dualist world view.
- Man a Machine by La Mettrie led the materialist charge.
- Helvetius brought about the materialist moral realm by introducing his rational ethics.
- Diderot proved the dynamic philosophé, presenting the world in constant flux and nature as creative.
- Combined with the new order of facts of Baron d'Holbach, the popularization of progress as a natural law by the Marquis de Condorcet, and the Physiocrats belief in the Laws of Economy, these thinkers defined the French Materialist movement.
Prominent French materialists of the 18th century include:
- Julien Offray de La Mettrie
- Denis Diderot
- Baron d'Holbach
- Claude Adrien Helvétius
- Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis
- Jacques-André Naigeon
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