Abstract
‘Entre Leibniz et Goethe qui l’écrasent, Diderot est peut-être au dix-huitième siècle notre seul génie encyclopédique.’1 The statement is provocative, as other names with solid claims to the title immediately spring to mind. Nonetheless, the range and flexibility of Diderot’s interests are vast and constantly overflow from one traditional category into another. We have earlier had occasion to look at his dramatic theory; our concern now is with a quite different field, the nature and origins of the physical human being. Yet both relate to that concern for mortal man which is the sheet-anchor of all Diderot’s research and writings. To Diderot infinity is a melancholy and sterile subject, because fundamentally outside the human domain. Le Rêve de d’Alembert fits perfectly into this context of humanist science.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
H. Brown, ‘Maupertuis philosophe: Enlightenment and the Berlin academy’, Studs. Volt., 24 (1963), p. 260.
R. Mousnier, Progrès scientifique et technique au XVIII’ siècle ( Paris: Plon, 1958 ), p. 370.
G. N. Laidlaw, ‘Diderot’s Teratology’, Diderot Studies, 4 (1963), pp. 116–17;
E. B. Hill, ‘The Rôle of “le monstre” in Diderot’s thought’, Studs. Volt., 97 (1972), pp. 147–261.
D. Mornet, ‘Les Enseignements des bibliothèques privées, 1750–1780’, RHL, 17 (1910), p. 460.
Copyright information
© 1982 Haydn Mason
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mason, H. (1982). The Development of Biological Science: Diderot (1713–84). In: French Writers and their Society 1715–1800. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04660-7_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04660-7_12
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-04662-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-04660-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)