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 Denis Diderot
France
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The soul of the Encyclopedia, Diderot himself was an encyclopedic figure of the eighteenth century, because of his universal curiosity, his refusal of contemporary authority and morals, and his materialism...
His universality asserted itself early in his studies combining mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, theater, chemistry, and chess.
In 1749, after a period of pamphlets and essays, his Lettre aux aveugles (Letter to the Blind) earned him , in 1749, four months incarceration in Vincennes and the nickname Socrates.
In 1745 he and d'Alembert conceived the project of an Encyclopedia : "a general picture of the efforts of the human spirit in all subjects and all centuries".
The Encyclopedia was started in 1751, and in spite of estrangements and the king's opposition was completed in 1765.
This huge work did not prevent Diderot from engaging in his other activities. He was an art critic - one of the first ones- in the Salons where he praised Greuze and Chardin ; a writer whose innovating philosophic tale, Jacques le Fataliste, was already evolving into a novel, the author of an autobiography, Le neveu de Rameau, and of plentiful correspondence (Catherine II, Sophie Volland), of licentious novels, and of plays, and a marvelous talker ...
He expressed his ideas especially well in Le rêve de d'Alembert. Atheism - "the first step to philosophy, is incredulity" - acceptance of one's contradictions as the basis of movement, balance between passion and reason ; the conception, influenced by Leibniz, of the oneness of all life - from mineral to man - endowed with an awareness that only differs only in degree.
Nowadays his contradictions and his refusal of any accepted system, doubtless contribute to his being acknowledged as a writer, but rejected as a philosopher - he would be too difficult to classify! |
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