Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

On the Parity of Life and Death: A Materialistic Treatise from the French Enlightenment

0/5 ( ratings)

The Enlightenment didn't emerge in a vacuum. The central ideas of its giants were incubating and circulating long before their time. "On the Parity of Life and Death", one of the more fascinating and daring texts from this early Enlightenment, was first published in 1714. For its author, Abraham Gaultier, everything is only "matter, modified in various ways" by blind causes. There is no intelligent designer. He explores how blind forces might bring life, sensitivity, and intelligence to matter, without any supernatural intervention.

It's more than a science lesson, though. Gaultier develops the philosophical implications of this view: all we are, all we see, all we love or hate, and all we do, is, as far as nature is concerned, meaningless: indeed, even life and death are one and the same to the indifferent substance of the universe: "there is nothing true, nothing real, but this unknown substance which is under a veil". We must find meaning within our own lives and with each other; it will not come as a gift from above.

This is the first English translation of an important book in the history of Western thought.

Pages: 94

Format: Kindle Edition

Release: July 12, 2017

On the Parity of Life and Death: A Materialistic Treatise from the French Enlightenment

0/5 ( ratings)

The Enlightenment didn't emerge in a vacuum. The central ideas of its giants were incubating and circulating long before their time. "On the Parity of Life and Death", one of the more fascinating and daring texts from this early Enlightenment, was first published in 1714. For its author, Abraham Gaultier, everything is only "matter, modified in various ways" by blind causes. There is no intelligent designer. He explores how blind forces might bring life, sensitivity, and intelligence to matter, without any supernatural intervention.

It's more than a science lesson, though. Gaultier develops the philosophical implications of this view: all we are, all we see, all we love or hate, and all we do, is, as far as nature is concerned, meaningless: indeed, even life and death are one and the same to the indifferent substance of the universe: "there is nothing true, nothing real, but this unknown substance which is under a veil". We must find meaning within our own lives and with each other; it will not come as a gift from above.

This is the first English translation of an important book in the history of Western thought.

Pages: 94

Format: Kindle Edition

Release: July 12, 2017

More books from Kirk Watson

The Skeptic's Walk: Discussions on Religion, Philosophy, and Worldly Affairs

The Individualist Sensibility

4.4/5 ( ratings)

The Wisdom of Pleasures: "The School of Voluptuousness" and "The Art of Enjoyment"

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Hedonist Alternative: "Anti-Seneca" and Other Texts

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Ethical Individualism: Selected Texts

The Emancipation of Woman

Power, Pleasure, and Self-Interest: Subversive Observations from a Libertarian Individualist

The Anarchic Order: Three Texts by an Early Anarchist

A Sensual Soul: Selected Works

Socialism 1.0: The First Writings of the Original Socialists, 1803-1813

A Society of Mutual Love: The Collected Writings of Pieter Plockhoy

The Communistic Universe: Selected Works

Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works

The Good Atheist: Three Early Biographies of Spinoza

The Three Impostors: Two Apocryphal Versions: "De Imposturis Religionum" and "The Spirit of Spinoza"

An Examination of Religion: and "On the Conduct A Good Man Should Observe During His Life"

A Safeguard against Religion: A Letter from Thrasybulus to Leucippus

The Use of Life: A Forgotten Handbook for Hedonists

The Anti-Authoritarian Philsosophy

The Anti-Authoritarian Philosophy: Selected Writings, 1904-1923

Rate this book!

Write a review?