Criticism of Metaphysics and Constitution of the Subject: Materialist Effects on the Philosophy of Helvétius and d'Holbach

Sophie Audidière (1)

1 IREDU - Institut de recherche sur l'éducation : Sociologie et Economie de l'Education

The series of books, marginalia, refutations, provoked by De l'esprit (1758) and De l'homme (1773) often plays a strategic role in the understanding of the Enlightenment. This paper focuses on what really happened when Rousseau did read and commented on Helvétius, which he made twice. Rousseau comments on the theory of judgment from the account of the experience of the sensitive and judging being. The question of matter and its properties will then no longer appear as the key to Rousseau's first reaction to Helvétius' work. Then we will see what closeness between the two philosophies need to be cleared. It will appear that Rousseau did not interpret (or rather misinterpret) Helvétius as the heir of a mechanism transposed in the moral field, relating to Descartes and Fontenelle, and knowing nothing of the life sciences, chemistry, etc., nor as a modern political materialist (thanks to the affirmation, generally understood in a widely anachronistically sense, that 'education is everything'), two misunderstandings widely read today.

Mots clés: Criticism; Metaphysics; Constitution of the Subject; Philosophy; Helvétius; Holbach

Domaines: Education

Sophie Audidière. Criticism of Metaphysics and Constitution of the Subject: Materialist Effects on the Philosophy of Helvétius and d'Holbach. Early Modern Materialism, Jun 2014, Mayence, Germany. ⟨halshs-01072144⟩