Charles Léopold Mayer

Charles Léopold Mayer (1881–1971) was a French biochemist, humanist and materialist philosopher.

Philosophy and work

Mayer was a materialist. He argued that all living matter is "irritable" and responds to stimuli. He explained the phenomena of life without recourse to "final causes". He believed that all organisms from bacteria to humans are conscious. Mayer called his doctrine "sensationalism" which he equated with the irritability of living matter. He held the view that all life, including man's is based on irritability. Thought is consciousness of irritability. According to Mayer "life is linked with sensation and cannot be understood except through sensation". He argued that organisms only know the world by their sensations and that this is a mechanical phenomenon to the effect that there is no design, final cause, supernaturalism or teleology. His book Man: Mind or Matter? (1951) endorsed a "renovated and rejuvenated philosophy of rationalistic materialism." He opposed the dialectical materialism of Marxism and the pessimistic materialism of the nineteenth century, favoring the ethical individualistic, optimistic materialism of Epicurus.

Selected publications

Man: Mind or Matter? (Translated and with a Preface by Harold A. Larrabee, 1951) Sensation: The Origin of Life (1961) Man Faces His Destiny (Translated by Heloise Norwell, J. S. Norwell and D. C. Fox, 1968)