Denis Diderot’s ideas about war and peace crystalize many of the contradictions in the world that he identified. On the one hand, war is a natural product of contradictions between natural law and human developments. On the other hand, it can and should always be subject to moral judgment based on a wide-ranging knowledge of history and context. War can be good if it eliminates tyranny, and bad if it limits freedom, equality, and prosperity. Peace can be good if (...) it cultivates the latter, and bad if it freezes inequality. Diderot never allows himself to rest on universal judgments for all times and all places, but insists upon never-ending comparisons and contrasts between the moral world and the natural world. Philosophical materialism provides the basis for his understanding of the world, but morals provide the instruments of judgment. (shrink)

Apresenta-se, traduz-se e anota-se a Carta a Paul Landois, datada de 1756, que contém uma síntese das principais teses da filosofia moral de Diderot.

Previous chapter The 18th century witnessed important changes in ontology and epistemology that greatly matter to rhythmology. Like all their contemporaries, Spinoza and Leibniz had reflected from the queen sciences of their age: physics and astronomy, backed by mathematics, especially arithmetic, calculus and geometry. Diderot in turn took advantage of the considerable progress in certain experimental and observation sciences: chemistry, natural history, medicine, and some research - Sur le concept de rythme – Nouvel article.

Previous chapter Rhythm in Poetry Diderot was probably the first to focus on rhythm in poetry, while distinguishing it both from metric and musical models which existed since the Greek and Roman period. In the Salon of 1767, he explained that in poetry “rhythm counts for everything”, because rhythm causes a “prosodical magic” by a “particular choice of words,” “a certain distribution” of sounds both for timbre and quantity. This movement and the distribution of - Sur le concept de rythme (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

¿Es posible que el arte progrese al mismo ritmo que la filosofía racional? ¿No existe algún tipo de incompatibilidad constitutiva entre ambos modos de interpretar la realidad, de manera tal que, siempre, la mayor precisión de la última implica una menor intensidad del primero? Tales preguntas constituyeron un vital eje de preocupación para los pensadores de la Ilustración francesa. En este artículo, nos concentramos en la respuesta que Denis Diderot intenta dar al dilema. Mostramos, en primer lugar, cómo el (...) editor de la Encyclopédie diferencia ambas áreas de la producción humana a la hora de trazar su historia: si bien es necesario destacar el progreso de la razón, lo es también el reconocer la decadencia de las artes como una de sus consecuencias. En segundo lugar, mostramos cómo, elaborado este diagnóstico, Diderot procura, a través de propuestas pictóricas, poetológicas y dramatúrgicas, salvar la potencia estética del arte para un siglo ilustrado. (shrink)

Diderot is widely praised as a master of lively, dramatic and original dialogue. This book studies the developing role of dialogue in his early writings (1745 to 1754). Diderot's earlier experiments with the dialogue form, meticulously charted and analysed by D. J. Adams, opened the way to the exploration of human communication and cooperation which lies at the heart of the Encyclopédie. At first for Diderot dialogue ended in the triumph of monologue, with one speaker reducing another to silence. But (...) one of his central problems was precisely that of solipsism. Is it possible for people to communicate effectively with each other? By engaging with this problem in his early writings Diderot gradually came to realise the epistemological importance of true dialogue as an escape from the solipsistic trap; and, slowly and hesitantly, he developed the form of communicative dialogue which was to flourish in the masterpieces of his later years. (shrink)

Diderot avait une foi inebranlable dans le projet des lumieres qu'il incarnait en sa personne de directeur de l'encyclopedie. Mais parallelement a ses propres experiences d'ecrivain, de romancier et de dramaturge, Diderot portait un vif interet a l'art, a sa nature et a ses problemes. Les neuf Salons livres a la revue de son ami Grimm, la confidentielle et elitiste Correspondance litteraire, forment une oeuvre en soi monumentale qui, redigee durant vingt ans, ne temoigne pas seulement de la passion d'un (...) amateur pour l'art, mais de la reflexion esthetique infatigable du philosophe. L'oeuvre de Diderot apparait alors comme une etape decisive du dialogue aujourd'hui renoue entre la philosophie, l'art et l'esthetique. L'auteur parvient ainsi a degager et a interpreter une perspective actuelle a l'evolution des idees esthetiques du jeune Diderot, en s'inspirant par exemple des concepts de corps et de chair chez Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

In his Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human Liberty (1717), the English deist Anthony Collins proposed a complete determinist account of the human mind and action, partly inspired by his mentor Locke, but also by elements from Bayle, Leibniz and other Continental sources. It is a determinism which does not neglect the question of the specific status of the mind but rather seeks to provide a causal account of mental activity and volition in particular; it is a ‘volitional determinism’. Some decades later, (...) Diderot articulates a very similar determinism, which seeks to recognize the existence of “causes proper to man” (as he says in the Réfutation d’Helvétius). The difference with Collins is that now biological factors are being taken into account. Obviously both the ‘volitional’ and the ‘biological’ forms of determinism are noteworthy inasmuch as they change our picture of the nature of determinism itself, but my interest here is to compare these two determinist arguments, both of which are broadly Spinozist in nature – and as such belong to what Jonathan Israel called in his recent book “the radical Enlightenment,” i.e. a kind of underground Enlightenment constituted by Spinozism – and to see how Collins’ specifically psychological vision and Diderot’s specifically biological vision correspond to their two separate national contexts: determinism in France in the mid-1750s was a much more medico-biological affair than English determinism, which appears to be on a ‘path’ leading to Mill and associationist psychology. (shrink)

Diderot, Denis: El sobrino de Rameau. El mundo sin Dios y el hombre en la naturaleza; conversación entre d'Alembert y Diderot. Sueño de d'Alembert (fragmentos) -- Holbach, Baron von. Sistema de la naturaleza. -- Helvetius, C. A. Del espíritu.

Los especialistas suelen atribuir a Diderot una concepción pesimista de la historia. Si bien de las obras de madurez del editor de la Encyclopédie se desprende una oscura imagen del porvenir, producto entre otras cosas de su encuentro con Catalina II y de la influencia de Galiani, ese pesimismo parece no agotar sus reflexiones acerca de la historia. De los trabajos de la época anterior a su viaje a Rusia se desprende otra concepción de la historia, la cual, no obstante, (...) no se confunde con las Cándidas especulaciones acerca del futuro del marqués de Condorcet. (shrink)

Art, evading the principle of utility, opens up to error. A profitable mistake if it is not stubborn. The artist cautiously accesses the logic of the production of nature which is characterized by continuous mutability. Therefore, “the history of man’s errors does him as much honour as the history of his discoveries”. Recalling the thought of Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, who debates the importance of mistakes that painters and poets can make against their own rules, the essay investigates Denis Diderot’s (...) thought, outlining a difference between amateur and connaisseur. If the connaisseur can make a mistake, the amateur, vulnerable and fascinated, just needs to have an active and curious attention that will allow him/her to be absorbed in the work of art. (shrink)

Quelle est la place du scepticisme dans l'œuvre d'un philosophe des Lumières comme Denis Diderot? Cet ouvrage vise à mettre en évidence les caractéristiques de la réception des instances sceptiques dans les œuvres de Diderot. L'analyse prend en considération l'ensemble du corpus diderotien, y compris sa contribution à l'Encyclopédie. L'objectif est aussi de montrer que la méthode sceptique de Diderot, qui consiste en l'usage de certaines argumentations, mais aussi en un ensemble de choix stylistiques, permet de mieux interpréter certaines (...) spécificités de sa pensée philosophique et de son matérialisme. Une meilleure compréhension du rôle du scepticisme dans la pensée de Diderot vise à apporter une contribution aux études sur ce qu'on définit comme le scepticisme des Lumières, en montrant qu'il serait plus exact de parler de scepticismes au pluriel, en raison des différences qui subsistent parmi les philosophes. Pour cette raison, ce livre propose des confrontations entre Diderot et ses sources sceptiques, mais aussi avec d'autres philosophes de son époque comme Montesquieu, Voltaire, D'Alembert et Hume"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)