The Encyclopdie of Diderot and dAlembert

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The Encyclopédie of Diderot and dAlembert

• Or Philosophy comes down to Earth
• (1751-1772)

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Reason removes the veil from Truth
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Explanation of frontispiece

• Truth is wrapped in a veil, radiant with light
  that disperses the clouds
• Reason and Philosophy are to her right
• Reason lifts the veil, while Philosophy pulls it
  away
• Theology, on her knees, receives the light from
  Truth (a reversal of traditional Christian view)
• Other sciences are grouped below.

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What was the Encyclopédie?

• A compendium of knowledge of practical value
• Architecture to education,
• Theatre construction to surgery,
• Forestry to chemistry
• Raised status of artisans,
• Detailed illustrations 11 volumes!

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Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
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Who was Denis Diderot?

• A commoner, from the provinces, son of a cutler
• Freelance writer and novelist (The Dream of
  dAlembert, La Religieuse) many posthumous
  works
• Atheist imprisoned in 1749 for his religious
  views
• A philosophe, friend of J.-J. Rousseau until
  1757
• Radical materialist, who held that consciousness
  arises from motion of atoms of sensitive matter
• Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville (posthumous)
  condemned imperialism and European attitudes of
  cultural superiority.

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Jean le Rond dAlembert (1717-1783)
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Who was dAlembert?

• Illegitimate son of a nobleman and noblewoman,
  abandoned at the Church of St Jean le Rond by his
  mother, but rescued by his father, who had him
  educated superbly
• Editor, with Diderot, of the Encyclopédie, author
  of the Preliminary Discourse, in which he
  followed Bacons empiricism and Lockes
  epistemology, and articles on mathematics,
  physics and philosophy
• Like Diderot, an atheist and materialist
• He resigned from the Encyclopédie in 1759, due to
  the uproar over his article on Geneva.

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DAlembert the Mathematician

• A mathematical prodigy, elected to Academy of
  Sciences (Paris) at the age of 25, dAlembert is
  known in the history of mathematics for his work
  on partial differential equations and for
  pioneering their use in physics
• His Traité de dynamique (1743) helped resolve the
  controversy in mathematical physics over the
  conservation of kinetic energy by improving
  Newton's definition of force.

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Publishing of the Encyclopédie

• Started as a mere translation of Chambers
  Cyclopedia (2 vols.) from English
• Culminated in 17 vols. of text and 11 of
  illustrations (engravings)
• 140 collaboratorsa network of collaboration
• Many key figures in literature, science and the
  French Kings Court (see PD 128-40)
• A publishing sensation
• Appeared in costly and inexpensive editions
• It was widely pirated.

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Title Page of Volume One (1751)
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Encyclopédies Two Roles informational and
subversive

• Practical knowledge
• Medicine (manifestos of Bacon, Descartes)
• Skills (crafts)
• Concepts in philosophy and the sciences
• Subversion subtle critique of received
  authority
• E.g. Abbé de Prades Certitude (1752)
  questioned bases (certainty) of Christian belief
• Undermined authority of the Church and
• the King and the French state.

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Illustrations of Chemistry and Anatomy
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Historical Legacy

• A precursor of French Revolution
• First massive compendium of its kind ancestor of
  Encyc. Britannica
• Reached out to middle class
• Work of learning in French (not Latin, following
  Descartes Discourse on Method)
• Elevated artisans technical knowledge as
  valuable in its own right (following Bacon)
• Established Bacon, Descartes, Locke and Newton as
  the fathers of Enlightenment.

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Censoring of the Encyclopédie

• 1752 condemnation by Royal Council for
• several maxims tending to destroy the royal
  authority, to establish the spirit of
  independence and revolt and, under obscure and
  equivocal terms, to raise the foundations of
  error, of corruption of morals, of irreligion and
  incredulity.
• Other repressive acts by Crown
• 1757 attempted assassination of Louis XV
  increased repression of subversive ideas
• 1766 torture and execution of the chevalier de
  la Barre for blasphemy (a cause célèbre of
  Voltaire).

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Publication under censorship

• Despite its condemnation, publication continued
• Friends of Encyc. included the Kings mistress,
  Mme de Pompadour, and the Chief Censor,
  Malesherbes,
• Malesherbes hid the typesetters plates at his
  own home,
• And sent the police to search Diderots home!

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The encyclopedic approach

• Premises of the work
• Useful knowledge can make humankind more
  virtuous and more happy (Diderot, Definition,
  71)
• Such knowledge is for all, not secret, or
  reserved for an elite
• All knowledge is interlocking, from Greek cycle
  or kyklos
• Order is alphabetic related articles are
  cross-referenced
• Advances a detailed scheme of human knowledge
  detailed analysis, pp. 143ff.

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System of Human Knowledge
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Overview of System of Human Knowledge

• Three faculties
• Memory history, including natural history
• Reason philosophy, including sciences of man and
  nature
• Imagination poetry
• Reason at center, most important, largest
• Faculty that serves all sciences, which are part
  of philosophy (why?)
• Where is theology (queen of the sciences for the
  medieval philosophers)?

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Next time

• Analysis of texts by
• dAlembert and Diderot

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Todays Question

• In his introduction to the Preliminary Discourse
  Richard N. Schwab (1995 xliv) writes that
  DAlembert and many other philosophes were
  optimistic about the progress of knowledge and
  the possibility of one day reducing all knowledge
  down to a few general principles.
• More recently, John Horgans The End of Science
  (1996) argues that the biggest discoveries in
  science have been made and that only the details
  need to be filled in (especially in physics--no
  more paradigm shifts like the theory of
  relativity.)
• How close or far are we today from having a
  complete system of knowledge of nature?

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Encyclopedia translation project

• http//www.hti.umich.edu/d/did/