“Let us then conclude boldly that man is a machine, and that in the whole universe there is but a single substance
[matter] variously modified.”
In this paper, I will refute Julian Offray de la Mettrie’s argument against the existence of human by showing that
Dr. Mettrie contradicts with himself. Mettrie is known as the “father of materialism” and in his books and as well
as in his quote, he supports the idea that human can be taught as a passive robot, a machine that it come to exist
without existence of any creator.
Mettrie refused to believe any soul independent from the body, substance itself. So he refuses the existence of
intuition, passion and emotions yet he wanted to share his ideas with society. However when he was existing,
society’s belief of religion was so strong and authority was on church’s side. After writing his first book, histoire
naturelle de l’âme (Men and the Animal) he exiled from his hometown, then after he finished to write his
second book, l’homme machine (Man a machine), he exiled from Holland too. So he knew that his ideas were
not acceptable for his society in his time but he chose to stand forward for what he believes that is defined as
“passion” in our century. How can a philosopher refuse the sense of passion by compering human with a machine,
and have actually the sense of passion?
To have another point of view, I want to investigate the example of “Parable of Twins” by Plato from “The Republic”.
According to Plato when the twins get to phase of embryo in the mother womb, they began to thing and sense
their environment. They think their world is the womb of the mother. They believe their life will all pass in that
womb. When the birthday comes, they see a light that they did not for their entire life, they afraid eventually,
when the first one come out the other thinks it are the end of their life. Yet, what actually happens is it is just a
beginning of a new life. It is so clear that our society and the society in the womb are alike. This can be concluding
as there will be existence after death. And it cannot happen without a soul, independent from the body, substance.
Mettrie gives the example of machine to describe human. As long as human are machines they can be modified
to be same. However can everyone be the same? Musil states that intelligence and emotions are connected
lack of this connection called “stupidity”. Mettrie wanted to praise human by comparing human with machines.
Since every human is not the same by the sense of emotions yet, machines are the same and they do not have
connection with their emotions. So is Mettrie insulting people?
Nietzsche believed the existence of an overman and he distinguished the overman from animals, in between he
put a bridge to pass, it was called “human”. Mettrie was right in the sense of “modifying”. Human can change, to
produce more knowledge, this is what Nietzsche called “overman” but can all the human be overman? If so, why
not we call human species as overman species? Comparing human with machines includes a meaning of “equity”
however human are not same.
On the other hand I partly believe in Mettrie’s statement in the sense of morals. Think about a crowded bus
station. Every human in that station is waiting for another bus and will go another place, to their self-created
systems to live on. Every human in that station is thinking another event. All of them have their own happiness
and their own sadness. This is complex and scary. And it is only a bus station but we are living all together in the
whole word. Billions and billions of bus stations like that. All these self-created systems are dependent to the
biggest one. Everything is so systematic. Human and their self-created systems almost like cogwheels to turn
biggest cogwheel, what I call earth. And human modify itself by technology. Not so far but 60 years ago, our
granddads and grandmothers were sending letters to communicate. When they sent a letter they were waiting
for a response by imagining. When human imagine about another human who loved, she/he does not imagine
the other one is doing daily work. When human imagine they deify the loved one. But today, we have developed
the technology and communicate with our phones. When a response comes late we get angry. Human lost its
patience. This causes lack of imagining about people because we know the every minute of their life, human lost
love. May before millions of years there were other emotions, senses but they disappeared like that. That is how
human modify, by losing. I think modifying to machine means losing all, end of the life.
Ahmet Ayberk AYKUL
12 - C
THE CLAPPER 2018 - 2019
75
Julian Offray de la Mettrie: Man a Machine (1747)
Trans. Gertrude Carman Bussey, The Open Court Publishing co., 1912, p. 148