Diderot

Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot (English: Denis Diderot, October 5, 1713 - July 31, 1784), a French Enlightenment thinker, philosopher, dramatist, writer and representative of encyclopedia, graduated from Paris University.

Denis Diderot was born in the family of a razor master in Langer, a small city in the eastern part of France. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Paris in 1732. After graduation, he worked as a tutor, translated books, and met Rousseau and other like-minded enlightenment thinkers. In 1749, he was jailed for publishing his atheist work "a blind book for a limited number of people". After his release, he presided over the Encyclopedia of science, fine arts and crafts under pressure and wrote more than 1000 items of philosophy and history.

Character experience

Diderot was born on October 5, 1713 in a famous family of knife makers in Langer, France. He was educated in a Jesuit school as a child. he went to Paris to study in 1729. At the age of 19, he received a master of Arts degree from the University of Paris, and then began to study law. His father only allowed him to study medicine or law, but he was more interested in mathematics, linguistics, philosophy and literature. Because he didn't want to study medicine or law according to his father's request, his father stopped funding him, so he had to make a living on his own. From 1734 to 1744, he lived in poverty all the time. But he had extensive contact with the society and honed his fighting spirit. In 1743, he met Rousseau. In 1745, at the request of the publisher, he began to compile the Encyclopedia of science, art and technology. During this period, he wrote many philosophical works, such as the book of philosophical thoughts, the walk of skeptics, and the book on the blind, which publicized atheism and angered the ruling class. As a result, he was imprisoned for three months. He was jailed on July 23, 1749 and released on November 3, 1749. After his release from prison, he decided to change people's way of thinking through the compilation and publication of Encyclopedia of science, fine arts and crafts, and set off a revolution in human spirit. He gathered a group of like-minded people and launched a fierce attack on the reactionary religious and social forces by spreading knowledge. Since then, the compilation and publication of Encyclopedia of science, fine arts and crafts has become the climax of the French Enlightenment. Diderot himself wrote more than 1000 articles and articles on philosophy, ethics, aesthetics and technology, and supervised the production of more than 3000 illustrations for the book. Encyclopedia of science, fine arts and technology has 28 volumes. It took 21 years from the first volume published in 1751 to the last volume published in 1772. From 1776 to 1780, the Encyclopedia of science, fine arts and technology added seven volumes. The Encyclopedia of Arts and crafts and the Encyclopedia of Arts and crafts in 1789 prepared for the revolution of science and technology in France at the same time. At the end of July 1784, he died suddenly at home.

Personal life

In 1742, despite his father's obstruction, he married artunetta, a poor and beautiful girl. After giving birth to a few children, but only born in 1753, angelica survived and became the apple of their eyes.

Main works

Main ideas

Philosophical thought

1. Material nature view

Diderot believes that nature and matter are the only real objective existence, and the unity of the universe and the world lies in its materiality. In order to clarify his point of view, based on the budding of the theory of biological evolution at that time, he put forward the idea that matter has universal sensibility, and clearly affirmed that thinking is the attribute of the brain, thus affirming the dependence of thinking and consciousness on matter. Diderot emphasized that receptive substances are universal and basic in nature. He divided receptivity into two kinds, namely "dull receptivity" and "active receptivity". Inanimate matter, such as a marble statue, has only a dull sensibility, while human beings, animals, electricity and plants have an active sensibility. Under certain conditions, the slow receptivity can transit to the active receptivity. Diderot, for example, said that people and marble statues are very different. No matter how skillful a sculptor is, his knife can't make skin. But there is a simple way to make the marble statues with only dull sensibility transition to people with feelings and thoughts. This is to pound the statue into powder, mix it with the dung, and pour water on it to make it rot. after that, people will grow into muscles after eating the food. It is obvious that Diderot's view of material evolution is a theory of living things, which is not in line with modern scientific knowledge, but has certain philosophical significance at that time. Diderot put forward the idea of "heterogeneous elements" while explaining the unity of the world, and used it to explain the diversity of nature and the world. He said that all things in nature are by no means and can never be composed of one kind of homogeneous elements, just as it is impossible to express all things with the same color, the rich, colorful and varied natural phenomena are the result of heterogeneous elements. The number of material elements is infinite, the nature is different, and they have the ability and sensibility of movement, which leads to the diversity of natural phenomena. The thought of "heterogeneous elements" is of great significance. It shows that Diderot tried to explain the relationship between the unity and diversity of the world from a dialectical point of view, and explain the diversity of nature with qualitative differences rather than only quantitative differences. This is undoubtedly a step forward compared with the 17th century materialists who only looked at matter from the perspective of mechanics or quantitative relations.

2. Sports view

Diderot unifies matter and motion and affirms that motion is the inherent property of matter. Because of different elements and forces, the motion of the whole universe is produced. According to Diderot, there are two basic forms of movement: the change of position ("movement") and the internal tendency ("excitement"). In connection with this, he believes that there are two kinds of ability to cause the motion of matter, namely, the force outside the molecule and the force inside the molecule. The former force is due to the interaction and reaction between objects, which will disappear; the latter force is due to the heterogeneity of the elements that make up the matter, so it is inherent in the molecule, water constant and more fundamental. It is certain that everything in the universe is moving or exciting, or moving and exciting at the same time. Diderot drew the idea of development from the absoluteness of this movement. In his view, the constant movement of water, the endless birth and death of nature constantly produce new things. Things produce subtle differences through the most imperceptible and gradual changes, but with the passage of time, there will be obvious huge differences between the past and the present, leading to the emergence of new things. Under the influence of Bifeng's theory of evolution, Diderot criticized the popular theory of species invariance in biology at that time. At that time, people were often puzzled about the question of "eggs before chickens, or chickens before eggs". In Diderot's view, the difficulty of the problem was that the formulation of the problem itself presupposed that animals were what they are now "; on the contrary, if we understand the problem from the perspective of biological evolution, the problem will be solved easily. Diderot believes that the so-called "nothing new in the world" is wrong, and the correct motto should be "everything changes with each passing day". In the 18th century, when the absolutely unchanging view of nature still occupied the dominant position, Diderot put forward this view of universal development, which was undoubtedly very valuable and contained the elements of dialectics.

3. Epistemology

Diderot's view of material nature is supported by Locke's empiricism in epistemology, but Diderot also has his own development. This is to regard human's cognitive activity itself as a systematic observation (feeling), thinking and experiment. Observation is the source of cognitive data, while thinking sorts these data into knowledge. The function of experiment is to examine Test this knowledge. The so-called method of observation is to collect all kinds of factual materials through the senses or with the help of auxiliary tools and instruments of the senses. Diderot emphasized the importance of observation and thought that only it can make us collect enough facts. Only facts are the real wealth of philosophers, so "observation should be focused". But the task of cognition is not only to collect the facts, but also to contact and sort out the facts, that is, to think about the facts. This is because factual materials only tell us what things are like, and to know why things are like this, that is, the reasons for things, we need to think. Moreover, "thinking should be profound." Diderot believes that concepts and knowledge formed through observation and thinking are still subjective, and they may be true or false. This kind of understanding is reliable only when it is connected with the external things and correctly reflects the object. In his view, the bridge that can connect the subject and object is scientific experiment activities. Only through experiments can we judge the truth of our knowledge and prove whether it is consistent with the outside world. For this reason, "experiments should be accurate.". Diderot regarded the experimental means adopted by science as one of the methods of cognition and the means of testing truth. This makes it universal and extensive in the sense of philosophy. This is what Diderot excels in.

Aesthetic thought

On the basis of materialism, Diderot put forward the theory of "beauty lies in relationship". "Beauty" is a noun of existence, which marks a common property of existence, which is "relationship". This is "beauty in relation"

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