Claude Adrien Helvetius
First of six weekly lectures by Isaiah Berlin
Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
(n these lectures, Isaiah Berlin discusses the ideas of some social and political thinkers before and after the French Revolution, which, in his view, have had a greater influence both for good and evil in the twentieth century than in their own time, and are now more important than ever.
The first lecture is about French philosophy of the later eighteenth century and, in particular, about the materialistic views of Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771), founder of utilitarianism.