About the mind. Helvetius K.A.

Claude Adrian Helvetius is a French philosopher-materialist, an outstanding thinker of the Enlightenment, one of the authors of the famous “Encyclopedia” of Didro and D'Alamber. The theory of personal interest, developed by him in the treatises “On the Certain” and “On Man” as the most important anthropological principle due to human nature itself, laid the foundations of the philosophy of utilitarianism and became the starting point of the later intellectual constructions of famous philosophers, such as John Bentam and John Stuart Mill.

Treatise Helvetius "On the Mind", which included in the present publication, is the main work of the outstanding French thinker. After the publication in 1758, the treatise aroused great interest and an unprecedented scandal: the book introduced the anger of government and church circles, was immediately banned and sentenced by a parliamentary court to burn. Since then, the treatise withstood countless reprints and has become one of the most significant works of philosophical literature.