Theo Verbeek
Université d’Utrecht (t.h.m.verbeek@uu.nl).
Abstract: La Mettrie’s ‘Preliminary discourse,’ nominally the introduction to the first collective edition of his philosophical works (1751), on one hand serves as a way to present the ideas on morality developed earlier in the introduction to his translation of Seneca’s ‘De vita beata’ (1748), but on the other hand also to complete it with the thesis that philosophy has no influence on the actions of ordinary people. The purely speculative nature of philosophy is further illustrated in La Mettrie’s Abrégé des systèmes (‘Short summary of philosophical systems’), a work first published under that title in the OEuvres philosophiques, but actually a revised version of notes earlier published in La Mettrie’s ‘Natural history of the soul’ (1745). The two works combined can be seen as La Mettrie’s reaction to the critique of his patron Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786).
Keywords: La Mettrie; Frédérick the Great; Materialism; Morality; Enlightenment.