Oeuvres philosophiques

Second collected edition, more complete than the one published in 1751 in Berlin, and additionally containing Anti-Sénèque (Discours sur le bonheur), L'Art de jouir, L'Homme plus que machine (which forms volume III). Rare.
Contemporary full bordeaux morocco bindings. Smooth spines decorated. Gilt title labels and volume labels. Triple gilt fillet frame on covers. All edges gilt. One line of discoloration on one cover of volume III. Possible restoration to lower cover of volume II. Very handsome copy, rare in this condition.
The importance of La Mettrie's philosophical theses has continued to grow since the 18th century, and the praise he receives today is matched only by the hatred he aroused in his time for his denial of the idea of the soul and his sensualist theories. It was the study of medicine that led him to the conclusion that psychic phenomena are merely the effects of organic changes. His radically materialist theses, which refound Cartesianism and its mechanistic notions, make man a superior animal and abolish the notion of the soul, rejecting any idea of God. Rejected from Paris and Leiden, he was welcomed in Berlin by Frederick II, radicalizing his positions in his works. He would oppose the philosophers of his time by advocating a pursuit of happiness based on the pleasures of the senses, virtue being reduced to the pleasure of loving, a thesis that the Marquis de Sade would applaud.