Talk:Julien Offray de La Mettrie

Untitled
This is an informative article; however, the actual eulogy written by Frederick the Great about La Mattrie would be helpful, in English or the original language (whether it is German or French I don't know).


 * I found a used copy of F.A. Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus (History of Materialism). It contained Frederick the Great's funeral oration. As a result, I created the "Death" section and related the story of La Mettrie's unfortunate over-indulgence.Lestrade 15:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Could someone add the "philosophy" box to the right-hand side? I don't know how, or I'd do it myself. Gavin6942 (talk) 00:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Addition/Changes
Hello, I am editing this page for an assignment in my History of Psychology class. Please look over my edit and let me know what you think. I am open to suggestions. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psychetudiante (talk • contribs) 01:12, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Request for Comments
There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:17, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Philosophy
The text said, without citing a reference, that La Mettrie was a "mechanistic materialist." A contrary view is cited in Skrbina, David. Panpsychism in the West. rev ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017, p123: "To him, mind was a very real entity, and clearly it was embedded in a material cosmos. An obvious solution, therefore, was to see matter itself as inherently dynamic, capable of feeling, even intelligent. Motion and mind derive from some inherent powers of life or sentience that dwell in matter itself or in the organizational properties of matter. That view, sometimes called vitalistic materialism, is the one that LaMettrie—and later Diderot—adopted.2 Commentators often portray LaMettrie as a mechanist because it is assumed that anyone who denies the spiritual realm must see all things, and in particular all living things, as products of dead matter. It is quite common, even today, to equate materialism with mechanism. But, as has been noted, the two are logically independent. ...Though he obviously adopted the term ‘machine’ in his L’Homme Machine, it was in a specifically vitalistic sense." I suggest replacing the statement about "mechanistic materialist" with one about "vitalistic materialism", with a short quote from Skrbina in a footnote. What do others think? Gerry1998 (talk) 06:41, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

I have now carried this change through. Gerry1998 (talk) 05:59, 20 January 2022 (UTC)