Denis Diderot

"one says that desire is the consequence of the will. But in truth the contrary is true, the will is the consequence of desire... " - (Denis Diderot)

Denis Diderot (Langres, 5 October - , ) it has been one and ; it was one of the maximum representatives of. Of well-off bourgeois family, after to have studied near the Jesuit college of the city born them, it was moved to in order to enroll itself to; it will exit some in with the title it of magister artium. It was also one of the compilers of Encyclopédie.

Biographical notes

Unprovided of a precise address of career, Diderot was adapted to the most various jobs. It was also write public and precettore, attending, like many other young people bohémien, salotti and the coffees in which the illuministiche ideas and libertine circulated.

Here it knew an other provincial one like he, Jean Jacques Rousseau, with which it constructed intense a how much burrascoso relationship. It studied Greek and Latin, medicine and music, earning itself living like translator. In it translate Test on the virtue and the merit of Anthony Shaftesbury, of which it admired the ideas of tolerance and of freedom. Later on, together to François-Vincent Toussaint and to Marc-Antoine Eidous, it worked to the French version of Dictionnaire universel de medicines (Paris 1746-1748) of the English doctor Robert James.

Philosophical thoughts

Under this infuence they place i Pensées philosophiques (Philosophical thoughts) of , of intonazione deista, The sufficienza of the natural religion and The walk of the skeptic of , all sourly criti to us towards superstizione and the intolerance. They go back to the novel libertino The indiscreet jewels and to Letter on the blind people to use of those who sees of sensista and materialista intonazione.

Already this first review of tito them (which they go added also some tests of ) it leaves to catch a glimpse two fundamental characteristics of the intellectual personality of the philosopher, is worth to say the vastness of its interests - that they spaced from to , from to - and the flexibility of the kinds of writing from he practices to you, particularly congenital to the mobile, opened and dialogico character of its thought.

Emprisoned to Vincennes for someone of these written, it judges you to sovversi to you, the great thinker will pass five months of imprisonment rather blanda, from the 22 July to 3 November .

The Encyclopédie

In the meantime the great adventure was begun also ofEncyclopédie, than it will untiringly occupy it for the successive one quindicennio. Of this Diderot work he will be the infaticabile craftsman, noticing in it an irrenounceable political struggle and cultural and supporting it almost alone, after defection of Alembert Jean-Baptiste the said Rond Jean d' Alembert in .

Viceversa, Diderot will not give in kind public circulation the own ones written, many of which will remain therefore of the all disowned ones to outside of the narrow one cerchia of the philosophers, in order to come only publishes after many decades from its dead women (some to you quite after ).

They belong to this period - the publication ofEncyclopédie it will be definitively only concluded in - others important works, between which the fundamental philosophical tests can be remembered The interpretation of the nature of , and Dream of of Alembert of ; the novels The monaca of , and Giacomo the fatalist of ; the dialogue The grandson of Rameau of ; the teatrali works The natural son and The family father, let alone the treaty The poésie drammatique.</br> One of its main works was the treaty on the teatrale art Paradoxe sur the acteur still today one of the more important works on the art of the recitazione.

The relation with Sophie

The private life of Diderot was intense, free, focused around to affective centers of great importance as the family - it was married in with one corniciaia, Antoinette Champion it dictates Nariette, having from the wedding one daughter amatissima - and, to leave from , the friend and lover Sophie Volland. Of this last relation one remain us epistolario of great value, beyond that biographical, literary and historical.

In the philosopher oed to Pietroburgo, where spread for the emperor Caterina II of Russia various plans of reform of the society and ofinstruction.

It was a hardest blow the dead women of Sophie in the February ; and the 31 July of the same Diderot year, given pain, morirà to .

Curiosity

Diderot is the singular protagonist de The libertino of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, to half between philosopher and man of world.