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Claude-Adrien Helvétius, philosopher, controversialist, and wealthy host to the Enlightenment group of French thinkers known as Philosophes. He is remembered for his hedonistic emphasis on physical sensation, his attack on the religious foundations of ethics, and his extravagant educational theory.

Helvétius, Claude Adrien (1715–71) French philosopher and educator. His best-known work, On the Mind (1758), attacked the religious basis of morality, arousing opposition. He claimed that everybody is intellectually equal but some have less desire to learn than others.

Claude-Adrien Helvétius ou Claude-Adrien Schweitzer [1], né le 26 janvier 1715 à Paris où il est mort le 26 décembre 1771 [2], est un écrivain et philosophe français du courant des Lumières, auteur de deux ouvrages majeurs, De l’Esprit (1758) et De l’Homme (1772) [3].

Helvétius was one of the most noteworthy and notorious figures of the French Enlightenment. In common with his fellow philosophes, he asserted that all philosophical discussions should be based on the empiricism of Locke ’s Essay on Human Understanding (1689).

Claude-Adrian Helvétius (Paris, 1715–Paris, 1771) was a materialist philosopher, whose version of republicanism is often regarded to have formed a major influence on the political theory standing behind the French Revolution (see Wooton 2000).

HELVÉTIUS, CLAUDE-ADRIEN (1715 – 1771), French philosopher. Claude-Adrien Helv é tius was one of the most audacious writers of the French Enlightenment. The uproar surrounding the publication of his first book, De l'esprit (1758), was so sensational that he was forced to recant three times.

Claude Adrien Helvetius. 1715-1771. French philosopher whose controversial book, De l'esprit, suggested that the source of all intellectual activity is the quest for sensation and that all human actions arise from self-interest. This book was burned in Paris, denounced by leading French intellectuals, and condemned by the English Parliament.

Claude Adrien Helvétius ( / hɛlˈviːʃəs /; French: [klod adʁijɛ̃ ɛlvesjys]; 26 January 1715 – 26 December 1771) was a French philosopher, freemason and littérateur. Oops something went wrong: 403 for Claude Adrien Helvétius was a French philosopher, freemason and littérateur.