Between Locke’s doubts and Bayle’s consequences Jean Meslier and the debate on “thinking matter”
- Publication type: Journal article
- Journal: Libertinage et philosophie à l’époque classique (xvie-xviiie siècle)
2021, n° 18. L’usage de la métaphysique chez les matérialistes des xvie, xviie et xviiie siècles - Author: Tizziani (Manuel)
- Pages: 175 to 199
- Journal: Libertinism and Philosophy in the Classical Period (16th-18th Century)
According to Locke, we may never be able to know whether a material being thinks or not. For Bayle, such a possibility would lead to the materiality of the soul and its mortality. In his Mémoire, Meslier answers Locke’s doubts and, based on a reading of Malebranche, draws the same consequences as Bayle, but defends them. This chapter examines Meslier’s arguments in the context of the metaphysical debates of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.
- CLIL theme: 3126 -- SCIENCES HUMAINES ET SOCIALES, LETTRES -- Philosophie
- ISBN: 978-2-406-12209-8
- EAN: 9782406122098
- ISSN: 2649-1826
- DOI: 10.48611/isbn.978-2-406-12209-8.p.0175
- Publisher: Classiques Garnier
- Online publication: 10-06-2021
- Periodicity: Annual
- Language: French
- Keyword: materialism, thought, human soul, beasts, metaphysical debates, theology
