Materialistic Theories of Mind and Brain

Abstract

The question of eighteenth-century materialism — generally seen as a purely French phenomenon — has given rise to quite a large number of misconceptions, concerning its nature, its philosophical inspiration or its aims, to name but a few. One can even doubt whether such a label, despite being consecrated by usage, has any real meaning, as there are great differences between those who have been included in the group of eighteenth-century French materialists (usually Meslier, La Mettrie, Diderot, Helvétius, d’Holbach), and doubts have even been thrown on how far they can all be classified as ‘materialists, ’ in addition, materialistic ideas are not confined to these particular thinkers, and recent research has been more and more concerned to study lesser-known writers and works. No-one holds any more the misleading, but at one time very common, view which (totally ignoring dates of publication) saw it as a purely late eighteenth-century phenomenon, centred around the Système de la Nature, published in 1770, which did, it is true, lead to a great polemical debate and the republication of earlier materialistic works. What I would like to do in this article is not to give a general survey of eighteenth-century French materialism but, in order to throw some light on the relationship between philosophy and science in the case of eighteenth-century materialists, to look at the essential scientific question raised by materialistic thinkers, in particular in the early years of the century, namely the functioning of the brain.