Sign-In
Cart
A Formula for Happiness: La Mettrie, Neuroscience, and the Mechanics of Joy
Paperback
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN13: 9798258903624
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Apr 25 2026
Pages: 236
Weight: 0.71
Height: 0.50 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Apr 25 2026
Pages: 236
Weight: 0.71
Height: 0.50 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
In 1748, a French physician named Julien Offray de La Mettrie published a book so scandalous that it was publicly burned. His crime? Suggesting that humans are machines - gloriously complicated, exquisitely sensitive machines, but machines nonetheless. He was exiled, mocked, and eventually died under suspicious circumstances after a lavish dinner involving truffle sauce. The Enlightenment, it turns out, had a dark sense of humor.
Nearly three centuries later, neuroscience has confirmed much of what La Mettrie intuited from the sickbed where a bout of fever first convinced him that the soul is merely the body talking to itself. Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins - these are the true authors of our joy and misery, our love affairs and existential crises. The dualism of body and soul, so dear to philosophers and theologians, turns out to be less a fundamental truth and more a comforting bedtime story we have been telling ourselves for millennia.
This book follows La Mettrie's audacious trail from his satirical demolition of Stoicism in Anti-Seneca, or Discourse on Happiness to his blistering critique of the medical profession in The Machiavellian Physician. Along the way, it asks the questions that keep both neuroscientists and insomniacs awake at night: Can happiness be reduced to chemistry? Are we better off as contented fools or tormented geniuses? Is Stoicism a path to wisdom or a sophisticated form of sour grapes? What are the odds - quite literally, using Bayesian probability - that the soul is immortal? And why does doing good for others feel so unreasonably pleasant?
Drawing on modern neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and the occasional parable involving foxes and grapes, A Formula for Happiness is at once a philosophical adventure, a history of ideas, and a practical investigation into what it actually takes to be happy in a universe that appears to be profoundly indifferent to our preferences. It is a book for anyone who has ever wondered whether the ancient question of happiness might finally have an answer - and whether that answer might be hiding in the chemistry of the brain rather than in the pages of sacred texts.
La Mettrie was nearly forgotten. His formula deserves to be remembered.
KEYWORDS
happiness, neuroscience, La Mettrie, philosophy of mind, Stoicism, materialism, consciousness
This book follows La Mettrie's audacious trail from his satirical demolition of Stoicism in Anti-Seneca, or Discourse on Happiness to his blistering critique of the medical profession in The Machiavellian Physician. Along the way, it asks the questions that keep both neuroscientists and insomniacs awake at night: Can happiness be reduced to chemistry? Are we better off as contented fools or tormented geniuses? Is Stoicism a path to wisdom or a sophisticated form of sour grapes? What are the odds - quite literally, using Bayesian probability - that the soul is immortal? And why does doing good for others feel so unreasonably pleasant?
Drawing on modern neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and the occasional parable involving foxes and grapes, A Formula for Happiness is at once a philosophical adventure, a history of ideas, and a practical investigation into what it actually takes to be happy in a universe that appears to be profoundly indifferent to our preferences. It is a book for anyone who has ever wondered whether the ancient question of happiness might finally have an answer - and whether that answer might be hiding in the chemistry of the brain rather than in the pages of sacred texts.
La Mettrie was nearly forgotten. His formula deserves to be remembered.
KEYWORDS
happiness, neuroscience, La Mettrie, philosophy of mind, Stoicism, materialism, consciousness
Also from
Kriger, Boris
Freedom from Taxes: Introduction of Automated Payment Transaction Tax and Universal Basic Income
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$9.60
The Law of Imperative Uncertainty: Why Any Complex World Requires Uncertainty
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$23.88
Foundations of Intellectual Substrate Mining: A Methodology for Extracting Formal Laws from Raw Wisdom
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$28.80
Spinoza, Evolution, and the Model Trap: Why We Cannot Perceive Reality Directly
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$26.40
Irrational Reason and Rational Faith: Pascal and the Structural Limits of Rationality
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$22.56
The Dawn of Shared Intelligence: How Autonomous Technology Will Reshape Civilization
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$28.80
The Next Sexual Revolution: Ideas of Wilhelm Reich in the Age of Artificial Intimacy
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$16.80
Absurd Faith for an Absurd World: The Tertullian Paradox in the Age of Unreason
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$17.20
Also in
Philosophy
Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea
Taylor, Astra
Hunt-Hendrix, Leah
Hardcover
$14.99
In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument
Williams, Bernard
Paperback
$46.25
The American Indian Mind in a Linear World: American Indian Studies and Traditional Knowledge
Fixico, Donald Lee
Paperback
$72.79
Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media
Lowenstein, Adam
Paperback
$51.00
Machine Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Spiritual Freedom and the Re-Animation of Matter
Lafitte, Luke
Paperback
From $14.99
The Sociogony: Social Facts and the Ontology of Objects, Things, and Monsters
Worrell, Mark P.
Paperback
$43.50
On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings
Pirsig, Wendy K.
Pirsig, Robert M.
Hardcover
$25.64
The Electromagnetic Brain: Em Field Theories on the Nature of Consciousness
Joye, Shelli Renée
Paperback
From $12.99
Philosophy in Turbulent Times: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida
Roudinesco, Elisabeth
Paperback
$42.00
The New Science of Giambattista Vico: Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the Addition of Practic of the New Science
Vico, Giambattista
Paperback
$43.43
The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy
Giridharadas, Anand
Hardcover
$10.99
The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
Gottlieb, Anthony
Paperback
$9.99
The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations
Barnes, Jonathan
Julia, Annas
Annas, Julia
Paperback
$48.84
Friendship and Society: An Introduction to Augustine's Practical Philosophy
Burt, Donald X.
Paperback
$28.49
Suffering and the Search for Meaning: Contemporary Responses to the Problem of Pain
Rice, Richard
Paperback
$24.69
Essays V2: Moral And Entertaining On The Various Faculties And Passions Of The Human Mind (1815)
Clarendon, Edward Hyde Earl of
Paperback
$37.44
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Hanselman, Stephen
Holiday, Ryan
Hardcover
From $12.99
The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger
Hardcover
From $19.99
The Obstacle Is the Way Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph
Holiday, Ryan
Hardcover
$26.60
Self-Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us about Living
Jones, Peter
Hardcover
$27.00
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
$19.00
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Fifth Anniversary Limited Edition: The Global Bestseller
Mackesy, Charlie
Hardcover
$28.49
Bless & Release: The physics of letting go-and wanting what's meant for you.
Laporte, Danielle
Paperback
$17.10
The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love
Hardy, Janet W.
Easton, Dossie
Paperback
$17.99
Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Wisdom for Inspiration and Healing from the Heart of Japan
Yoda, Hiroko
Hardcover
$26.10
Self-Reliance and Nature: The Complete First and Second Series of Emerson's Essays
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Hardcover
$24.99