Thursday, February 23, 2006
Denis Diderot and the Encyclopedie
Diderot (1713-1784)
-Modest artisan background
-Jesuit education
-Tried a number of different professions and then became a writer
-Frequented the coffee houses in Paris and became a friend of the philosophes
-Also connected in the literary underground
-Religious crisis?
-First secret marriage produces one child, Angelique
-First jail time in 1749, connected to publication of scurrilous novel and the essay "On Blindness"
---essay discusses a materialist philosophy
Diderot (1713-1784)
-Modest artisan background
-Jesuit education
-Tried a number of different professions and then became a writer
-Frequented the coffee houses in Paris and became a friend of the philosophes
-Also connected in the literary underground
-Religious crisis?
-First secret marriage produces one child, Angelique
-First jail time in 1749, connected to publication of scurrilous novel and the essay "On Blindness"
---essay discusses a materialist philosophy
Encyclopedie (1751-1772)
-What makes it radical?: kind of knowledge gathered and how it is treated
-Modeled on Ephraim Chamber's Cyclopaedia
-Seeks all knowledge and truth
-Diderot recruits Jean Le Rond D'Alembert to the project
-Both outsiders in their way
-Anthropocentric worldview
Tree of Knowledge
Radical redefinition of authority
Radical articles and cross-references
--"Ame" ("On the Soul" by Diderot)
--"Anthropophagie" and "Eucharist"
Major Controversies including:
-D'Alembert quits in 1758
-Project is shut down, books are burned, Diderot hangs on.
# posted by Anne Good @ 9:55 AM 
