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Man a Machine

1748 work of materialist philosophy by French physician and philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 14, 2025
Entity authorityQ3203583 ↗
Source-derived summary

Man a Machine (French: L'homme machine) is a work of materialist philosophy by the 18th-century French physician and philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie, first published in 1747. In this work, de La Mettrie extends Descartes' argument that animals are mere automatons, or machines, to human beings. He denies dualism and the existence of the soul as a substance separate from matter.

Writing on the effects of physical conditions on the soul

La Mettrie cites how the body and soul are one in sleep, how humans must nourish their bodies, and the intense effects of drugs on both the body and the soul, or mind, noting that "diverse states of the soul are always correlated with those of the body."

Materialism in relation to evolution and quantum mechanism

Karl Popper discusses de La Mettrie's claim in relation to evolution and quantum mechanics.

Yet the doctrine that man is a machine was argued most forcefully in 1751, long before the theory of evolution became generally accepted, by de La Mettrie; and the theory of evolution gave the problem an even sharper edge, by suggesting there may be no clear distinction between living matter and dead matter. And, in spite of the victory of the new quantum theory, and the conversion of so many physicists to indeterminism, de La Mettrie's doctrine that man is a machine has perhaps more defenders than before among physicists, biologists and philosophers; especially in the form of the thesis that man is a computer.

See also

Animal machine

Computational theory of mind

Mind–body problem

References

External links

Man a Machine - 1748 English translation of L'homme machine

1912 Open Court French-English edition (English translation by Gertrude C. Bussey, rev. by Mary Whiton Calkins) Full text of same archived by Project Gutenberg.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Man a Machine” as 1748 work of materialist philosophy by French physician and philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1747, 1751, 1748, 1912—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1748. The account is most persuasive where Machine, work and materialist can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as 1748 work of materialist philosophy by French physician and philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 14, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3203583. VIAF identifies the subject as 211737018. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1747, 1751, 1748 and 1912.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Man a Machine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.