baron d' Paul Henri Thiry Holbach

Born in 1723, Baron d'Holbach was a French Enlightenment philosopher, writer, and salon host, though he was born in the German Palatinate and later made his life in Paris. He became one of the era's most outspoken critics of organized religion and argued for a fully natural, material world governed by cause and effect.

He is best known for works such as The System of Nature, which presented a starkly atheistic and deterministic view of human life. Many of his books were published anonymously or under other names because their ideas were considered dangerous at the time.

D'Holbach was also a central figure in the intellectual world around the Encyclopédie. His Paris salon brought together major thinkers of the 18th century, and his writing remains important for readers interested in the radical side of the Enlightenment.