# Man a Machine

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{{Short description|1748 book by Julien Offray de La Mettrie}}
{{italic title}}
thumb|right|200px|Title page of a 1748 French edition.

'''''Man a Machine''''' ({{Langx|fr|'''L'homme machine'''|italic=yes}}) is a work of [materialist](/source/materialist) philosophy by the 18th-century [French](/source/France) physician and [philosopher](/source/philosopher) [Julien Offray de La Mettrie](/source/Julien_Offray_de_La_Mettrie), first published in 1747.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|last1=de La Mettrie|first1=Julien Offray|translator-last1=Thomson|translator-first1=Ann|title=Machine man and other writings|date=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=9780521478496|edition=Hardback version transferred to digital print.}}</ref> In this work, de La Mettrie extends [Descartes](/source/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes)' argument that [animals](/source/animals) are mere [automaton](/source/automaton)s, or machines, to human beings. He denies [dualism](/source/Mind-body_dualism) and the existence of the [soul](/source/soul) as a [substance](/source/Substance_theory) separate from [matter](/source/matter).
==Writing on the effects of physical conditions on the soul==

La Mettrie cites how the body and soul are one in [sleep](/source/sleep), how humans must [nourish](/source/nutrition) their bodies, and the intense effects of [drugs](/source/drugs) on both the body and the soul, or [mind](/source/mind), noting that "diverse states of the soul are always correlated with those of the body."<ref name=":0" />

==Materialism in relation to evolution and quantum mechanism==
[Karl Popper](/source/Karl_Popper) discusses de La Mettrie's claim in relation to [evolution](/source/evolution) and [quantum mechanics](/source/quantum_mechanics).
<blockquote>
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](/source/living_matter) and dead [matter](/source/matter). And, in spite of the victory of the new quantum theory, and the conversion of so many physicists to [indeterminism](/source/Uncertainty_principle), 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.<ref>Popper, K.: ''[http://www.the-rathouse.com/2011/Clouds-and-Clocks.html Of Clouds and Clocks]'', included in ''Objective Knowledge'', revised, 1978, p. 224.</ref>
</blockquote>
==See also==
* [Animal machine](/source/Animal_machine)
* [Computational theory of mind](/source/Computational_theory_of_mind)
* [Mind–body problem](/source/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem)

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* [http://bactra.org/LaMettrie/Machine/ ''Man a Machine'' - 1748 English translation of ''L'homme machine'']
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=GKYLAQAAIAAJ 1912 Open Court French-English edition] (English translation by [Gertrude C. Bussey](/source/Gertrude_C._Bussey), rev. by [Mary Whiton Calkins](/source/Mary_Whiton_Calkins)) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52090 Full text] of same archived by [Project Gutenberg](/source/Project_Gutenberg).
* [http://www.thestandupphilosophers.co.uk/la-mettries-machine-man/ 'Review by the stand up philosophers']

{{Authority control}}
Category:1747 non-fiction books
Category:History of materialism
Category:Metaphysics literature
Category:Modern philosophical literature
Category:Philosophy of mind literature

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