Helvétius and the Roots of the “Closed†Society

The argument of this essay is that Talmon and Popper are mistaken in their suggestion that speculation about human affairs is governed by an inexorable logic of political consequences: that there exist certain broad perspectives or ‘paradigms†that impel men willy-nilly to pathological extremes in their political views, apart from intention or historical circumstance. I seek to demonstrate that the general perspective which informed the thought of Helvétius—unquestionably one of the most manipulative of thinkers in his conception of politics—was simply the framework of early-modern science, as it was understood in France. It was the same philosophy which served his unequivocally libertarian contemporaries, such as Voltaire and Diderot, as well as their predecessors. Helvétius' political conclusions resulted, not from pathological attitudes or doctrines, but rather from his attempt to resolve a problem engendered within the new science, a fundamental dilemma in French thinking concerning the relationship of the individual to society and the state.