Claude Adrien Helvétius
French philosopher;
Claude Adrien Helvétius's AcademicInfluence.com Rankings
Download Badge
Philosophy
Why Is Claude Adrien Helvétius Influential?
(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, Claude Adrien Helvétius was a French philosopher, freemason and littérateur. Life Claude Adrien Helvétius was born in Paris, France, and was descended from a family of physicians, originally surnamed Schweitzer . His great-grandfather Johann Friedrich Schweitzer known as "Helvetius", was a Dutch physician and alchemist, of German extraction. His grandfather Adriaan Helvetius introduced the use of ipecacuanha; his father Jean Claude Adrien Helvétius was first physician to Marie Leszczyńska, queen of France. Claude Adrien was trained for a financial career, apprenticed to his maternal uncle in Caen, but he occupied his spare time with poetry. Aged twenty-three, at the queen's request, he was appointed as a farmer-general, a tax-collecting post worth 100,000 crowns a year. Thus provided for, he proceeded to enjoy life to the utmost, with the help of his wealth and liberality, his literary and artistic tastes - he attended, for example, the progressive Club de l'Entresol. As he grew older, he began to seek more lasting distinctions, stimulated by the success of Pierre Louis Maupertuis as a mathematician, of Voltaire as a poet, and of Montesquieu as a philosopher. His wife, Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, Madame Helvétius, maintained a salon attended by the leading figures of the Enlightenment for over five decades.
Other Resources About Claude Adrien Helvétius
What Are Claude Adrien Helvétius's Academic Contributions?
Claude Adrien Helvétius has made the following academic contributions: