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Cyhist Jul 9 1996 D
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Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:11:37 -0700
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From: "Peter H. Salus" To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
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Sender: "Peter H. Salus" Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
The very last line of Lederberg's essay introduces LaMettrie,
in whom I have long had an interest. LaMettrie was (with
Condillac) one of the French disciples of Locke and Hume. He
is, in some sense, the first behaviorist, perhaps better
``physicalist.'' Berlin noted that ``La Mettrie conceives
the true philosopher as a kind of engineer who can take to
pieces the apparatus that is the human mind.''
Born in 1709, Julien Offray de la Mettrie was a trained physician
patronized by Fredrick the Great of Prussia (who wrote the eloge
on La Mettrie's death at 41). La Mettrie's ``L'homme Machine''
appeared in Leiden in 1748. The first English edition appeared
in 1749. The second, 1750. A more recent translation appeared
in 1912.
Counter essays appeared almost immediately (Frantzen's Denial of
Man a Machine [Leipzig 1749], Tralles' On Man's Machine and Soul
[Leipzig 1749], Hollmann's Refutation... [Berlin 1750]). That this
``controversy'' did not just go away until Ryle and Koestler
can be seen from Rignano's Man not a Machine (London, 1926) and
the response to it by none other than Joseph Needham, Man a
Machine: In answer to a romantical and unscientific treatise
written by Sig. Eugenio Rignano... (New York 1928).
Not wanting to excruciate this list, I'll end this here with a brief
line from La Mettrie: ``Man is a machine so compounded that it is
at first impossible to form a clear idea of it... [I]t is only
a posteriori or by seeking to unravel the soul, as it were, via the
organs of the body, that one can ... attain to the highest degree
of probability possible on this topic [human nature itself].''
Peter
-----------------------------------------------------------
Peter H. Salus #3303 4 Longfellow Place Boston, MA 02114
peter@pedant.com +1 617 723 3092
-----------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________________
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From: "Peter H. Salus" To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment: Discussion of history of computing
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X-Message-Id: <84358139696.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 837007733.018
Sender: "Peter H. Salus" Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
The very last line of Lederberg's essay introduces LaMettrie,
in whom I have long had an interest. LaMettrie was (with
Condillac) one of the French disciples of Locke and Hume. He
is, in some sense, the first behaviorist, perhaps better
``physicalist.'' Berlin noted that ``La Mettrie conceives
the true philosopher as a kind of engineer who can take to
pieces the apparatus that is the human mind.''
Born in 1709, Julien Offray de la Mettrie was a trained physician
patronized by Fredrick the Great of Prussia (who wrote the eloge
on La Mettrie's death at 41). La Mettrie's ``L'homme Machine''
appeared in Leiden in 1748. The first English edition appeared
in 1749. The second, 1750. A more recent translation appeared
in 1912.
Counter essays appeared almost immediately (Frantzen's Denial of
Man a Machine [Leipzig 1749], Tralles' On Man's Machine and Soul
[Leipzig 1749], Hollmann's Refutation... [Berlin 1750]). That this
``controversy'' did not just go away until Ryle and Koestler
can be seen from Rignano's Man not a Machine (London, 1926) and
the response to it by none other than Joseph Needham, Man a
Machine: In answer to a romantical and unscientific treatise
written by Sig. Eugenio Rignano... (New York 1928).
Not wanting to excruciate this list, I'll end this here with a brief
line from La Mettrie: ``Man is a machine so compounded that it is
at first impossible to form a clear idea of it... [I]t is only
a posteriori or by seeking to unravel the soul, as it were, via the
organs of the body, that one can ... attain to the highest degree
of probability possible on this topic [human nature itself].''
Peter
-----------------------------------------------------------
Peter H. Salus #3303 4 Longfellow Place Boston, MA 02114
peter@pedant.com +1 617 723 3092
-----------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________________
