Baron d'Holbach
1723-1789 · French Enlightenment · Known
Baron d'Holbach was the most uncompromising atheist of the Enlightenment. No creator, no purpose, no soul, no free will, just matter in motion under necessary laws that could not have run otherwise: he laid out that mechanical universe in 1770 in Système de la nature, published under a false name. His Paris salon was the room where the philosophes sharpened their attack on religion.
Signature
The position Holbach is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Mechanistic
- Theology
- Atheism
Positions on the 12 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Mechanistic (0 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- strongly leans Brain Only (0 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- strongly leans Indescribable (100 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- mildly leans Nominalism (65 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Constructed (0 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Immanence (0 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- strongly leans Mastery (5 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- strongly leans Liberalism (92 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- mildly leans Ends (33 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (15 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (75 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
8 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Holbach refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Natural Emergence
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Indirect Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Utilitarian Calculation
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Hard Determinism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Natural Law
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Natural Law / Social Contract
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Annihilation
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Adaptive Function
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Tabula Rasa
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?