 Ghost in the Shell made me aware of this old philosophical treatise on materialist philosophy (written mid-18th century). I was curious about how de la Mettrie could provide a context for thinking through a time in which man (human beings) are literally becoming mechanized and the strict separation between human and machine is disappearing. The Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway is also a valuable companion for thinking through this.
de la Mettrie is a physician who wrote medical texts in addition to his engagement in philosophy, who, after a violent fever, "became obsessed with the vision of man as a machine." He is writing in a very particular intellectual context, in the midst of debates between rationalism and empiricism, spiritualism and materialism, and the existence of God. de la Mettrie himself proves to be an empiricist, a hard materialist, and an atheist. de la Mettrie begins by embedding the soul into the body: "In disease the soul is sometimes hidden, showing no signs of life..." "Is the circulation too quick? the soul can not sleep. Is the soul too much excited? the blood cannot be quieted: it gallops through the veins with an audible murmur." He then does a quick comparison of the anatomy of human beings and animals, de-exceptionalizing human beings (organisms with souls): "[If the ape were taught a language] then he would no longer be a wild man, nor a defective man, but he would be a perfect man, a little gentleman..." de la Mettries moves onto de-exceptionalize the innate human capacity for ethical behaviour (or natural law), demonstrating that animals can "show us sure signs of repentance, as well as of intelligence..." while human beings often behave in flagrant disregard for it. He concludes that "man is not moulded from a costlier clay; nature has used but one dough, and has merely varied the leaven." Afterward, de la Mettrie attempts to tackle the source of the soul. He starts disarmingly, and writes that he does "not mean to call in question the existence of a supreme being" (of course he does). Interestingly, he makes a critique of religion that is often recounted in contemporary political discourse: "if atheism, said he, were generally accepted, all the forms of religion would them be destroyed and cut off at the roots. No more theological wars, no more soldiers of religions--such terrible soldiers!" Through this process, the soul falls from its former sacred position: "... Since all the faculties of the soul depend to such a degree on the proper organization of the brain and the whole body, that apparently they are but this organization itself, the soul is clearly an enlightened machine." My edition of de la Mettrie's Man a Machine is excellent: it has the original French, supplementary notes to contextualize the essay and excerpts from de la Mettrie's "The Natural History of the Soul" to better contextualize his philosophy.
1 Comment
 Some of these short, short stories felt shocking and absurd, either because of Kawabatan intention or because of the brutal reduction of the narrative--or both: Kawabata was an avant-garde writer back in the day, influenced by surrealism, cubism, dadaism, and other Western imports; three of the first four stories in this collection of many are dream-tales.
Scholium "Marriages of blood relatives had continued through the generations until the girl's family had gradually died out... She, too, was rather small in the shoulders. Men were probably startled when they embraced her. ... The girl, however, enjoyed daydreaming of a strong man's arms--strong arms that would make her ribs crack when they were wrapped around her. For, although her face looked relaxed, she felt desperate. When she closed her eyes, she saw her body floating on the ocean of life, drifting wherever the tide took it. This gave her an amorous air." The disjointed and pared down writing obscures the connections between the sentences. From Kawabata's The Old Capital and Thousand Cranes I sensed a non-Western and anti-individual conception of personhood, one in which human beings can be thought of as repetitions (I struggle for a better word)--some of the short, short stories seem to confirm my suspicions. Scholium The story "Mother," for example, begins as follows: "1/The Husband's Diary Tonight I took a wife When I embraced her--the womanly softness My mother was also a woman Tears overflowing, I told my new bride Become a good mother Become a good mother For I never knew my mother" The husband becomes deathly ill, the wife forces the illness into her, they both die from illness, leaving a 3 year old infant behind. The story ends: "4/The Husband's Diary Tonight I took a wife When I embraced her--the womanly softness My mother was also a woman Tears overflowing, I told my new bride Become a good mother Become a good mother For I never knew my mother" The last story in the collection is "Gleanings from Snow Country." I felt trepidation about reading the story: this was an occasion that called for solemnity, gravity, midnight--I did not want to read it casually for the same reason I dread treading on a fresh, unmarked field of morning snow (I actually don't). I've read it while un-sober, with the hopes that this would preserve the story for an actual first reading, for when I would be ready. |
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