Vartanian establishes the authoritative French text of La Mettrie's L'Homme Machine, and several essays on its background, claims, its materialism, and its place in 18th Century science.
Situates Sade's work into the cultural and intellectual context during the Age of Enlightenment by focusing on Sade's engaged approach to scientific culture, epistemology and social reforms and analyzes his medical appropriation of these…
Julien Offray de La Mettrie was one of the earliest French Enlightenment materialists. Exiled from France after publishing a book (A Natural History of the Soul) arguing that psychical phenomena could be explained by examining bodily processes, he…