Claude Adrien Helvétius
Claude Adrien Helvétius | |
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18th-century philosophy | |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Utilitarianism French materialism Sensualism |
Main interests | Ethics · Political philosophy |
Claude Adrien Helvétius (
Life
Claude Adrien Helvétius was born in
In 1758 Helvétius published his philosophical
In 1764 Helvétius visited England, and the next year, at the invitation of
After 10 years, when he thought his fortune sufficient, he gave up the post of farmer-general, and retired to a country estate in France, where he employed his fortune in the relief of the poor, the encouragement of agriculture and the development of industries.[6] For this he won the admiration of many of the philosophers.
Helvétius' family lived alternately on Château de Voré (Collines des Perches, Loir-et-Cher) and their Parisian townhouse at the rue Sainte-Anne.
Religiously, Helvétius was a Deist, albeit a "most indifferent" one.[7]
He died in Paris on December 26, 1771.
A work found in his papers called De l'homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son éducation (On Man), was published in 1773.
Philosophy
De l'esprit and its reception
Helvétius' philosophical studies ended in the production of his famous book De l'esprit (On Mind). It was first published in 1758 and was intended to be the rival of
The work attracted immediate attention and aroused the most formidable opposition, especially from the dauphin
It had far-reaching negative effects on the rest of the philosophes, in particular, Denis Diderot, and the great work he was doing on the Encyclopédie. The religious authorities, particularly the Jesuits and the new Pope, began to fear the spread of atheism and wanted to clamp down on the 'modern thought' hard and quickly. De l'esprit became almost a scapegoat for this.[5]
This great publicity resulted in the book being translated into almost all the languages of Europe. Voltaire said that it lacked originality.
Psychological egoism
Helvétius' philosophy belongs to the Egoist school:
- All man's faculties may be reduced to physical sensation, even memory, comparison, judgment. Our only difference from the lower animals lies in our external organization.
- Self-interest, founded on the love of pleasure and the fear of pain, is the sole spring of judgment, action, and affection. Human beings are motivated solely by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. "These two," he says, "are, and always will be, the only principles of action in man."[9] Self-sacrifice is prompted by the fact that the sensation of pleasure outweighs the accompanying pain and is thus the result of deliberate calculation.
- We have no freedom of choice between good and evil. There is no such thing as absolute right – ideas of justice and injustice change according to customs.[6]
This view of man was largely Hobbesian – man is a system deterministically controllable by a suitable combination of reward and punishment, and the ends of government are to ensure the maximization of pleasure.
Natural equality of intelligences
"All men," Helvétius maintained, "have an equal disposition for understanding."[10] As one of the French Enlightenment's many Lockean disciples, he regarded the human mind as a blank slate, but free not only from innate ideas but also from innate natural dispositions and propensities. Physiological constitution was at most a peripheral factor in men's characters or capabilities. Any apparent inequalities were independent of natural organization, and had their cause in the unequal desire for instruction. This desire springs from passions, of which all men commonly well organized are susceptible to the same degree. We thus owe everything to education. Social engineering is therefore an enterprise unconstrained by the natural abilities of men.
This natural equality applied to all men in all nations, and thus the differences in national characteristics were not the result of innate differences between the people therein, but rather a byproduct of the system of education and government. "No nation," wrote Helvétius, "has reason to regard itself superior to others by virtue of its innate endowment."[11]
This radically egalitarian aspect of Helvétius' philosophy caused
Omnipotence of education
Since all men have the same natural potential, Helvétius argued, they all have the same ability to learn. Thus, education is the method by which to reform society, and there are few limits to the drastic social improvements that could be brought about by the appropriate distribution of education. Although people seem to possess certain qualities in greater abundance than their neighbours, the explanation for this comes 'from above' – it is caused by education, law and government. "If we commonly meet in London, with knowing men, who are with much more difficulty found in France," this is because it is a country where "every citizen has a share in the management of affairs in general."[12] "The art of forming men," he concludes, "is in all countries [...] strictly connected to the form of the government", and thus education via governmental intervention is the method of reform.[13]
The crux of his thought was that public ethics has a utilitarian basis, and he insisted strongly on the importance of culture and education in national development.[14] His thinking can be described as unsystematic.[by whom?]
Influence
The original ideas in his system are those of the natural equality of intelligences and the omnipotence of education, neither of which gained general acceptance, though both were prominent in the system of
The materialistic aspects of Helvétius, along with Baron d'Holbach, had an influence on Karl Marx, the theorist of historical materialism and communism, who studied the ideas of Helvétius in Paris and later called the materialism of Helvétius and d'Holbach "the social basis of communism".[15]
Criticism
German philosopher Johann Georg Hamann vigorously opposed Helvétius's rationalistic doctrines.[16]
British philosopher
Poetry
His poetic ambitions resulted in the poem called Le Bonheur (published posthumously, with an account of Helvétius's life and works, by Jean François de Saint-Lambert, 1773), in which he develops the idea that true happiness is only to be found in making the interest of one person that of all.[6]
Bibliography
A work called De l'homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son éducation, found among his manuscripts, was published after his death. There is a complete edition of the works of Helvétius, published at Paris, 1818.[18]
For an estimate of his work and his place among the philosophers of the 18th century see
References
- ^ "Helvétius". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
- ^ Ian Cumming, Helvetius: His Life and Place in the History of Educational Thought, Routledge, 2013, p. 7.
- ^ Ian Cumming, Helvetius: His Life and Place in the History of Educational Thought, Routledge, 2013, pp. 115–132.
- ^ Helvetius, Adriaan in Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, vol 8, (1867), p. 509.
- ^ a b Helvetius: A Study in Persecution by David Warner Smith, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1965.
- ^ a b c d e f Chisholm 1911, p. 254.
- ISBN 978-0-598-51150-8.
Helvetius himself was a Deist – a most indifferent Deist
- ^ Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Helvétius, Claude Adrien, Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties and his Education, transl. W. Hooper, M. D., (London: Albion Press, 1810), p. 146
- ^ Helvétius, Claude Adrien, De l'esprit or, Essays on the Mind, and Its Several Faculties, (London: 1759), p. 286
- ^ Helvétius, De l'esprit, p. 21
- ^ Helvétius, De l'esprit, p. 100.
- ^ Helvétius, De l'esprit, p. 325
- ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 254–255.
- ^ Mehring, Franz, Karl Marx: The Story of His Life (Routledge, 2003) pg. 75
- ^ Robert Alan Sparling, Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project, University of Toronto Press, 2011, p. 34.
- ^ Berlin, Isaiah, Freedom and Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty (Princeton University Press, 2003)
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911, p. 255.
Attribution:
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Helvétius, Claude Adrien". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 254–255. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
External links
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How to use archival material |
- Works by or about Claude Adrien Helvétius at Internet Archive
- A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties & His Education by Helvétius - English translation by W. Hooper, 1777, Google Books
- De l'Esprit, or Essays on the Mind and Its Several Faculties by Helvétius - English translation by William Mudford, 1807, Google Books