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.
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
Famous quotes containing the words french and/or materialism:
“If you should put a knife into a French girl’s learning it would explode and blow away like an omelette soufflee ...”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)