La Mettrie’s philosophy was influenced greatly by the work of Rene Descartes. Descartes theories were based on materialism. He believed that all animals, except for humans, are simply machines. La Mettrie considered animals and humans machines in the sense of having functional parts and performative tasks. What separates humans from other animals is that they have souls. Descartes defines souls as separate from the body with different characteristics. While La Mettrie agrees with Descartes that animals are machines, he believes that humans are no more special. Specifically, Descartes believes that only humans have souls, while La Mettrie states that both animals and humans have the capacity to think and feel. With these two opinions differing, they led to Descartes not being interested in Mettrie’s mechanical theory that man could be made from a talking machine like an animatronic, called the bete machine doctrine. That doctrine completely opposes cartesian mechanism since La Mettrie thought life was a second effect of materials, not necessary with a soul. The Cartesian mechanism completely separates the mind from the body and attributes to the later mind-body problem.
Philosophers that consider materialist or mechanist views usually focus on dualist types of arguments. La Mettrie, when theorizing the passing of a soul, believes that it also dies if the body dies, while Descartes thinks the two are independent and the soul may not die but move on. With these views, it would be logical to assume Descartes didn’t think that someone’s characteristics are dependent on physical health, unlike La Mettrie. If someone was considered a genius, but has a fever one day, Mettrie would consider that person to be dumb that day since he would not be able to perform at a genius level.
While both of the philosophers are materialists, they differ in the mind’s role in functioning to the body. Descartes’ dualist outlook will define the mind to be separate from body functions while Mettrie believes that there are no spiritual factors in autonomy and that the mind, very much, is in contact with the body. In the Cartesian view, the soul would be located in the pineal gland in the brain. In Mettrie’s view, this includes the motor functions of the human body, that the mind is not a separate entity. On the other hand, this does not mean that La Mettrie considered the soul to be a factor in motor function. It was known that his work made contradictory points as Mettrie would change the wording of his doctrines, so his latest change was that the soul was not needed for the movement of life.
A huge difference in opinion existed between theist and atheist arguments and it is well noted that Descartes was a theistic thinker. Mettrie, on the other hand, was a staunch atheist. In Descartes’ famous Meditations, he writes about a dilemma of an evil deceiver versus the real God which ultimately became one of the most well known theistic pieces of work advocating for God. La Mettrie, on the other hand, had many of his books burned from his controversial opinions and he quoted “What is the soul, but an empty word to which no idea corresponds?” specifically targeting theistic philosophers.
After La Mettrie finished writing his discourse, the Roman Catholic church and others burned his books and frequently banned him after he revealed a change of words. Mettrie, later in the discourse, didn’t think that animals nor humans had souls at all. This completely outraged theistic organizations in the countries he would work in. Descartes of course believed that humans had souls, the opposite of Mettrie, yet he feared the same persecution of the churches that treated Mettrie despite being a serious Catholic. So, even though both philosophers had opposite views on the same spectrum, they both could face the power of the churches and possible banishment.
On another similar note, both Mettrie and Descarte were obviously mechanists (different subtypes). This implies that both believed the importance of human anatomy in the sense that our bodies are relying on physical processes. Arguably, materialists historically considered these mechanical processes more important than spiritualist ideas on the body. Mechanists also were philosophers that focused on the branch of metaphysics.
Sources:
- Man a Machine Analysis – eNotes.com. (n.d.). ENotes. https://www.enotes.com/topics/man-machine
- Death – Descartes, the pineal soul, and brain-stem death. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/death/Descartes-the-pineal-soul-and-brain-stem-death
- La Mettrie, Julien. (1747). Man a Machine Analysis – eNotes.com. (n.d.). ENotes. https://www.enotes.com/topics/man-machine
- Gunderson, Keith. (1964). Descartes, La Mettrie, Language, and Machines. Cambridge University Press. Vol.39 200-209. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3749220?seq=17#metadata_info_tab_content
Rocky Road: Descartes. (n.d.). Www.strangescience.net. https://www.strangescience.net/descartes.htm