Abstract
This article discusses Du Châtelet’s challenging claim that entertaining
illusions, especially illusions of being esteemed by posterity, is conducive to happiness.
It does so by taking a contextualizing approach, contrasting her views with
the views on illusions and happiness in Julien Offray de La Mettrie and Bernard de
Fontenelle. I will argue for three claims: (1) Du Châtelet’s view that illusions are akin
to perceptions that are favorable to us problematically generalizes La Mettrie’s insight
that some acts of the imagination have a quasi-perceptual nature. (2) Du Châtelet’s
comparison between self-related illusions and illusions in the theater is vulnerable to
objection deriving from some distinctions that Fontenelle’s poetics draws between
the role of illusions in the theater and the role of illusions in real life. (3) Examining
Fontenelle’s analysis of detrimental effects of self-related illusions indicates several
respects in which Du Châtelet has underestimated the ambivalent nature of illusions.
The upshot of these considerations is that her challenge will have to be modified in
substantial respects. In particular, the work of Fontenelle provides some clues as to
how Du Châtelet’s “great machines” of happiness could be supplemented through
strategies for regulating illusions that are detrimental for happiness.