Source: National Archives & Historic Records of Holy Roman Empire
Philosophy & Thought • Historical Archive • 🇩🇪 Germany • 0 views

Baron d'Holbach (Paul-Henri Thiry) 🇩🇪

Paul-Henri Thiry, baron d'Holbach (Known as "Baron d'Holbach")
Materialist Philosopher, Encyclopedist, Salon Host, Author of Système de la Nature
Born Dec 08, 1723 🇩🇪 Edesheim (Rhenish Palatinate), Germany
Passed Away Jan 21, 1789 Paris, France
Lifespan 65 years old
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"Man is the work of nature; he exists in nature; he is submitted to her laws; he cannot free himself from them even in thought."

Archival Overview

German-born French Enlightenment philosopher and wealthy patron whose legendary Parisian salon became the 'coterie holbachique' and whose radical atheist treatise Système de la Nature was dubbed the 'Atheist's Bible'.

Biographical Record

Inheriting a great fortune and barony from his uncle, Holbach settled in Paris, hosting lavish bi-weekly dinners for thirty years at his townhouse on Rue Royale, welcoming Diderot, Rousseau, Hume, Benjamin Franklin, and Cesare Beccaria.

He translated German metallurgical science for the Encyclopédie, contributing nearly 400 scientific articles. In 1770, under the pseudonym Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud, he published Système de la Nature, a relentless, uncompromising defense of deterministic materialism and atheism.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Church of Saint-Roch
Paris, France
GPS: 48.8656, 2.3333
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