Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’

Introduction

Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789) was a central figure of the French Enlightenment, best known today for his thoroughgoing atheism, materialism, and determinism, and for his hosting of an important intellectual salon in Paris. In the 1770s, he published a series of major works on social and political philosophy: Système social (1773b), La politique naturelle (1773a), Ethocratie (1776a), and La morale universelle (1776b). His views of society, authority, law, and ethics were informed by a categorical secularism and utilitarianism, a conviction that no system could be universally applied but must take into account the peculiarities of particular culture and history, and a belief that enlightened reform was the only alternative to destructive revolution.

Holbach vehemently rejected all notions of a pre-social state of nature and of an actual, historical social contract. For Holbach, human beings were sociable by nature and governed by their inherent passion to pursue their own...