Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751), French doctor and author of L'Homme machine, was a major materialist and sensualist philosopher who believed that sensual pleasures such as eating, sex, and play were the sole reason for life. He died of overeating at a feast given in his honor by a grateful patient he had cured.
His philosophical adversaries suggested that by doing so, he had contradicted his theoretical doctrine with the effect of his practical actions.
Það er svolítið skemmtilegt að hann skuli líta út eins og hann sé blekaður á þessari einu mynd sem til er af honum:
(Sveinbjörn)
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Hahaha, ég er að lesa L'homme machine gaumgæfilega og skellti upp úr við að lesa eftirfarandi (hér er La Mettrie að tala um áhrif nautna á sálina...):
What other kind of fury is to be found in the man or woman tormented by continence and good health! This shy, retiring young girl has not only lost all shame and modesty; she now considers incest merely as a flighty woman considers adultery. If her needs are not promptly assuaged, they will not be confined to the mere accidents of uterine passion, mania, etc., and the unfortunate woman will die of an affliction for which there are so many doctors.
Maður að mínu skapi!
Those whom nature has showered with her most precious gifts should pity those who have been refused them, but they can enjoy their superiority without vanity and with discernment. A beautiful woman who considers herself ugly would be as ridiculous as a clever man who believes himself stupid. Exaggerated modesty (a rare defect, it is true) is a sort of ingratitude towards nature. Honest pride on the contrary is the mark of a fine, great soul, indicated by manly traits, moulded as if by feeling.
Eitt í viðbót, hér er La Mettrie að færa rök fyrir því að maðurinn sé bara vél, og notar mjög skemmtilegt dæmi:
Why does the sight, or the mere idea, of a beautiful woman cause singular movements and desires in us? Does what happens then in certain organs come from the very nature of those organs? Not at all, but from the intercourse and sort of sympathy of those muscles with the imagination. All we have here is one spring, excited by the Ancients' 'beneplacitum' or by the sight of beauty, exciting another one, which was very drowsy when the imagination awoke it. And what can cause this except the riot and tumult of the blood and spirits, which gallop with extraordinary rapidity and swell the hollowed-out organs?
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Sveinbjörn... Ég fokking elska þennan gaur!
Samt dálítið lúxus approach á lífið. Ég efast um að proletariat-ið hafi verið í þeirri aðstöðu að geta stuðst við kenningarnar hans.