(1723–1789)
German-born French intellectual. Paul Heinrich Dietrich took the name and French nationality of his maternal uncle, who had made a fortune in Paris. For many years Holbach's salon in Paris was the central meeting-point of many of the thinkers of the French Enlightenment . His own philosophical stance was one of unswerving atheistic materialism, and he took pains to demonstrate that this is compatible with a life of altruism and virtue. His most important philosophical work was the Système de la nature (1770, trs. as The System of Nature, 1795).
Philosophy dictionary. Academic. 2011.