 Diderot, by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1767. | |
| Born | 5 October 1713 Langres, France |
|---|---|
| Died | 31 July 1784 (aged 70) Paris, France |
| Era | 18th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| Signature |  |
Philosophy
As a philosopher Diderot speculated on free will and held a completely materialistic view of the universe; he suggested all human behavior is determined by heredity. He therefore warned his fellow philosophers against an overemphasis on mathematics and against the blind optimism that sees in the growth of physical knowledge an automatic social and human progress. He rejected the Idea of Progress. In his opinion, the aim of progressing through technology was doomed to fail. He founded his philosophy on experiment and the study of probabilities. He wrote several articles and supplements concerning gambling, mortality rates, and inoculation against smallpox for the Encyclopédie. There he discreetly but firmly refuted d'Alembert's technical errors and personal positions on probability.In his youth Diderot was originally a follower of Voltaire and his deist Anglomanie, but gradually moved away from this line of thought towards materialism and atheism, a move which was finally realised in 1747 in the philosophical debate in the second part of his La Promenade du sceptique (1747).[12]
External links
 | Wikisource has original works written by or about: |
 | Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Denis Diderot |
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Denis Diderot |
- Diderot Search engine in French for human sciences in tribute to Diderot
- Denis Diderot article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Works by Denis Diderot at Project Gutenberg (French)
- Denis Diderot: Rêve d'Alembert (d'Alembert's Dream) (French and English texts)
- Conversation between D'Alembert and Diderot (alternate translation of the first part of the above)
- Denis Diderot Archive (English)
- Works by or about Denis Diderot in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Diderot's listing at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (French)
- Denis Diderot Website (in French)
- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Diderot by John Morley
- (French) On line version of the Encyclopédie. The articles are classified in alphabetical order (26 files).
- The ARTFL Encyclopédie, provided by the ARTFL Project of the University of Chicago (articles in French, scans of 18th century print copies provided)
- The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project, product of the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library (an effort to translate the Encyclopédie into English)
- Denis Diderot,“État de la Chine selon ses détracteurs,” 1781.
- Short biography
- Denis Diderot Bibliography
- Le Neveu de Rameau – Diderot et Goethe
