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Diderot: Man and Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

J. H. Brumfitt
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Extract

Principal editor of the great Encyclopedia, novelist and prose writer of genius, contributor to the development of scientific thought and method, to the theory of the bourgeois drama and to the practice of art criticism, Diderot perhaps embodies the rich variety of the Enlightenment spirit more than any other man. His only real rival is surely Voltaire. Rousseau, whose influence was greater than Diderot's, would not thank us for classing him among the philosophes. The more profound philosophers - a Hume or a Kant - not only lack his range, but are less unquestionably ‘Enlightenment men’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 12 , March 1978 , pp. 162 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1978

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References

NOTES

1 For details of recent research see La Correspondance de Grimm et de Meister (Colloque de Sarrebruck), ed. Bray, , Schlobach, and Varloot, (Paris, 1976).Google Scholar

2 For details see the edition by Fabre, Jean (Geneva, 1950), pp. xiii–xiv.Google Scholar

3 See the Introduction to the edition of the Oeuvres politiques by Vernière, Paul (Paris, 1963), pp. ii–iv.Google Scholar

4 See May, G.'s ‘L'Angoisse de l'échec et la genèse du Neveu de Rameau’ in Diderot Studies (Geneva, 1949), III, p. 287.Google Scholar

5 Most of those which follow have been fully discussed by Dieckmann, Herbert, Cinq legons sur Diderot (Geneva-Paris, 1959), pp. 19 ff.Google Scholar

6 This is suggested by Sherman, Carol, Diderot and the Art of Dialogue (Geneva, 1976), pp. 41–2.Google Scholar

7 Op. cit. pp. 24–5.

8 See especially the Introduction to his Diderot (Paris, 1941).Google Scholar

9 Engels makes this point in Anti-Dühring (ed. Dutt, , London, 1934), p. 26 Google Scholar. On the attitude of Russian Marxists see Miller, Arnold, ‘The Annexation of a Philosophe: Diderot in Soviet Criticism’ in Diderot Studies, XV Google Scholar. Miller notes (p. 32) that Diderot was Marx's favourite prose writer.

10 See the edition by Niklaus, R. (Geneva-Paris, 1957), p. 3.Google Scholar

11 For a full analysis see Vartanian, Aram, ‘From Deist to Atheist: Diderot's philosophical orientation, 1746–49’, Diderot Studies, I.Google Scholar

12 For examples see Niklaus, R., A Literary History of France: The Eighteenth Century (London, 1970), pp. 215–16.Google Scholar

13 Correspondance, ed. Roth, (Paris, 1955–1970), V, p. 117.Google Scholar

14 Though in the same year, in a letter to Voltaire, (Correspondance, I, p. 78)Google Scholar he can still affirm his belief in God.

15 See the Introduction to the latter work in Verni, Paulère's edition of the Oeuvres philosophiques (Paris, 1956), pp. 249 ff.Google Scholar

16 Ed. cit. p. 22.

17 Oeuvres philosophiques, p. 119.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. p. 92.

19 Correspondance, I, pp. 209 ff.Google Scholar

20 Collins, Anthony's A philosophical enquiry concerning Human Liberty (1717)Google Scholar led many philosophes, including Diderot and Voltaire, towards determinism.

21 For examples see Verniere, Paul's edition of the Oeuvres politiques (Paris, 1963), pp. 395–6Google Scholar and see below, pp. 170 and 173.

22 The work was never completed, but the Contrat social embodies many of his findings.

23 Op. cit. (Paris, 1967), pp. 341 ffGoogle Scholar. The following paragraphs are greatly indebted to Proust's work.

24 Oeuvres politiques, pp. 9 ff.Google Scholar

25 Ibid. p. 15.

26 Ibid. pp. 16 ff.

27 See Oeuvres complètes, ed. Assézat, and Tourneux, (Paris, 1875–1877), I, pp. 431 ff.Google Scholar

28 Op. cit. pp. 418–19.

29 Ibid. pp. 421–2.

30 Contrat social, Bk. II, ch. 7. Rousseau's ‘legislator’, as has often been remarked, is required to have almost superhuman qualities.

31 See, for example, Oeuvres politiques, pp. 366, 403 and 484 Google Scholar. See also Strugnell, Anthony, Diderot's Politics (The Hague, 1973), p. 174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 On the development of Rousseau's thought on property, see the edition of the Contrat social by Vaughan, C. (Manchester, 1947), pp. 132–4.Google Scholar

33 Oeuvres politiques, pp. 29 ff.Google Scholar

34 Contrat social, Bk. II, ch. 3.

35 It was not published, but survived in the Geneva MS and appears in many modern editions of the Contrat social, e.g. that by Grimsley, Ronald (Oxford, 1972).Google Scholar

36 This debt to the Traité du pouvoir des rois de la Grande-Bretagne was not acknowledged by Diderot, but was pointed out in a critical review in the Mémoires de Trévoux. See Oeuvres politiques, p. 5.Google Scholar

37 Two letters from Diderot to Sophie Volland in 1763 describe d'Holbach's reactions. Diderot's meetings with Wilkes two years earlier may have already been leading him in the same direction.

38 See Oeuvres politiques, p. 53 Google Scholar. He is still expressing the same view in his Mèmoires pour Cathérine II (ibid. p. 230).

39 See Strugnell, , op. cit., pp. 93 ff.Google Scholar and Oeuvres politiques, pp. xviii–xix.Google Scholar

40 Correspondance, V, pp. 245 ff.Google Scholar

41 Oeuvres politiques, p. 395.Google Scholar

42 For details see, for example, Grosclaude, Pierre, Un audacieux message: L'Encyclopedic (Paris, 1952)Google Scholar, or the relevant chapters in Wilson, A. M.'s masterly biography of Diderot (New York, 1972).Google Scholar

43 See, for example, Correspondance, II, p. 124 Google Scholar; III, p. 303, and IV, p. 288.

44 Just how ‘Victorian’ his moralizing can be is seen from his upbringing of his daughter; see Correspondance, VII, p. 231.Google Scholar

45 Correspondance, IX, p. 154 Google Scholar. See also Wilson, , op. cit., pp. 576–7.Google Scholar

46 For a perceptive study of his use of dialogue see Sherman, , op. cit. Google Scholar

47 Oeuvres philosophiques, p. 369 Google Scholar. I am indebted to Rachel Eltis for drawing my attention to the relevance of this quotation.

48 Oeuvres philosophiques, p. 443.Google Scholar

49 Strugnell comments: ‘The social values which flow from Diderot's materialist ethics are daunting in the extreme. Everywhere the individual is reduced to total subservience to the collectivity’ (op. cit. p. 42). The problems raised by the Supplément are acutely analysed in the edition by Dieckmann, Herbert (Geneva-Paris, 1955).Google Scholar

50 Supplément, ed. Dieckmann, p. 64.Google Scholar

51 Correspondance, XIII, p. 26.Google Scholar

52 Oeuvres philosophiques, pp. 552–3.Google Scholar

53 See Sherman, , op. cit. p. 107 n.Google Scholar, for a useful bibliography of conflicting interpretations of Le Neveu.

54 Crocker, L. G., ‘ Jacques le fataliste, an “Experience morale”’, Diderot Studies, III, pp. 73–99.Google Scholar

65 For a fuller discussion of this aspect of his thought see Hill, Emita, ‘Human Nature and the Moral Monstre ’, Diderot Studies, XVI, pp. 91–117.Google Scholar

56 Ed. Fabre, , p. 72.Google Scholar

57 See Proust, , op. cit. pp. 338 ffGoogle Scholar. and Correspondance, III, p. 98.Google Scholar

58 On Helvétius (and on Diderot's reactions) see Smith, D. W., Helvétius: A Study in Persecution (Oxford, 1965).Google Scholar

59 Oeuvres philosophiques, pp. 257 ff.Google Scholar See also Correspondance, V, p. 142.Google Scholar

60 Oeuvres completes, II, p. 302.Google Scholar

61 Ibid. p. 289.

62 Ibid. pp. 318 and 300. The significance and modernity of Diderot's view is brought out by Alexander, I. W., ‘Philosophy of Organism and Philosophy of Consciousness in Diderot's Speculative Thought’ in Studies in Romance Philology and French Literature presented to John Orr (Manchester, 1953).Google Scholar

63 Oeuvres completes, II, pp. 343–5.Google Scholar

64 Ibid. pp. 308–14.

65 Oeuvres politiques, pp. 61 ff.Google Scholar

66 Oeuvres politiques, pp. 129 ffGoogle Scholar. Diderot's relationship to Frederick is examined by Hytier, Adrienne, ‘Le Philosophe et le despote: Histoire d'une inimité. Diderot et Frédéric II’, Diderot Studies, VI, PP. 55–87.Google Scholar

67 Oeuvres politiques, pp. 151 ff.Google Scholar

68 Oeuvres completes, II, p. 429 Google Scholar. See also Oeuvres politiques, p. 272.Google Scholar

69 Oeuvres politiques, pp. 237 ff.Google Scholar

70 Mémoires pour Cathérine II, ed. Vernière, (Paris, 1966), p. xviii.Google Scholar

71 Oeuvres complètes, III, pp. 433 ff.Google Scholar

72 Oeuvres politiques, pp. 331 ff.Google Scholar

73 Vernière, (Oeuvres politiques, p. xxxiii)Google Scholar notes that in 1772 Diderot partly justifies the authoritarian coup of Gustav III of Sweden by referring to the danger of ‘popular anarchy’.

74 See Aux Insurgents d'Amérique (Oeuvres politiques, pp. 489 ff.Google Scholar

75 See de Booy, J. Th. and Freer, Alan J., ‘Jacques le fataliste et La Religieuse devant la critique révolutionnaire’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, XXXIII, pp. 41 ff.Google Scholar

76 Oeuvres complètes, IV, pp. 15–16.

77 See Oeuvres politiques, p. xxxii.Google Scholar

78 Ibid. p. 288.

79 Ibid. p. xxxvi.

80 Oeuvres complètes, III Google Scholar. See especially pp. III, 164 and 263.