Diderot Project, however, is not a condensed version or description of theEncyclopedia. Like literary works of ekphrasis whose words meditate on a visual object,Diderot Projectis book art that meditates — inversely — on a literary work. The cover toDiderot Projectdoes not show its name where ...
Denis Diderot, French man of letters and philosopher who, from 1745 to 1772, served as chief editor of the Encyclopedie, one of the principal works of the Age of Enlightenment. Diderot wrote novels, short stories, and plays as well as treatises on natura
In these works Diderot developed his materialist philosophy and arrived at startling intuitive insights into biology and chemistry; in speculating on the origins of life without divine intervention, for instance, he foreshadowed the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin and put forth a strikingly ...
Diderot’s major plays,Le Fils naturel(1757; “TheIllegitimateSon”) andLe Père de famille(1758; “The Father of the Family”), make tedious reading today. His theories ondrama, however, expounded inEntretiens sur le fils naturel(1757; “Discussion on the Illegitimate Son”) andDiscours sur...