View source for Denis Diderot

{{Short description|French philosopher and writer (1713–1784)}}
{{Redirect|Diderot|the lunar impact crater|Diderot (crater)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2023}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region  = [[Western philosophy]]
| era = [[18th-century philosophy]]
| image = Louis-Michel van Loo 001.jpg
| caption = ''[[Portrait of Denis Diderot]]'' by [[Louis-Michel van Loo]], 1767
| name = Denis Diderot
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1713|10|5}}
| birth_place = [[Langres]], Champagne, France
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1784|7|31|1713|10|5}}
| death_place = Paris, France
| school_tradition = {{ubl|[[Encyclopédistes]]|[[French materialism]]}}
| alma_mater = [[University of Paris]]
| main_interests = Science, literature, philosophy, art<ref name=AoV />{{rp|650}}
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Antoinette Champion]]|1743}}
| children = 4
| signature = Denis Diderot signature.svg
}}

'''Denis Diderot''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|iː|d|ə|r|oʊ}};<ref>[http://www.dictionary.com/browse/diderot "Diderot"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{IPA|fr|dəni did(ə)ʁo|lang}}; 5 October 1713{{snd}}31 July 1784) was a French philosopher, [[art critic]], and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the {{lang|fr|[[Encyclopédie]]}} along with [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]]. He was a prominent figure during the [[Age of Enlightenment]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Denis Diderot {{!}} Biography, philosophy, Works, Beliefs, Enlightenment, & Facts|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Denis-Diderot|access-date=2021-06-25|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref>

Diderot initially studied philosophy at a [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] college, then considered working in the church clergy before briefly studying law. When he decided to become a writer in 1734, his father disowned him. He lived a [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] existence for the next decade. In the 1740s he wrote many of his best-known works in both fiction and non-fiction, including the 1748 novel ''[[The Indiscreet Jewels|Les Bijoux indiscrets]]'' (The Indiscreet Jewels).

In 1751 Diderot co-created the ''Encyclopédie'' with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. It was the first encyclopedia to include contributions from many named contributors and the first to describe the [[mechanical arts]]. Its secular tone, which included articles skeptical about [[Biblical miracles]], angered both religious and government authorities; in 1758 it was [[Index Librorum Prohibitorum|banned by the Catholic Church]] and, in 1759, the French government banned it as well, although this ban was not strictly enforced. Many of the initial contributors to the ''Encyclopédie'' left the project as a result of its controversies and some were even jailed. D'Alembert left in 1759, making Diderot the sole editor. Diderot also became the main contributor, writing around 7,000 articles. He continued working on the project until 1765. He was increasingly despondent about the ''Encyclopédie'' by the end of his involvement in it and felt that the entire project might have been a waste. Nevertheless, the ''Encyclopédie'' is considered one of the forerunners of the [[French Revolution]].

Diderot struggled financially throughout most of his career and received very little official recognition of his merit, including being passed over for membership in the [[Académie Française]]. His fortunes improved significantly in 1766, when Russian Empress [[Catherine the Great]], who had heard of his financial troubles, bought his 3,000-volume personal library, amassed during his work on the Encyclopédie, for 15,000 livres, and offered him in addition a thousand more livres per year to serve as its custodian while he lived.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1 |wstitle=Diderot, Denis |volume=8 |pages=204–206 |first=John |last=Morley|author-link=John Morley}}</ref> He received 50 years' "salary" up front from her, and stayed five months at her court in [[Saint Petersburg]] in 1773 and 1774, sharing discussions and writing essays on various topics for her several times a week.<ref name="Arthur Wilson 1972"/><ref>{{cite web|last=Verzaal|first=Elly|url=http://blog.kb.nl/diderot-op-de-kneuterdijk-1|title=Diderot op de Kneuterdijk (1)|trans-title=Diderot on Kneuterdijk (1)|language=nl|publisher=[[National Library of the Netherlands]]|date=25 October 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021144239/http://blog.kb.nl/diderot-op-de-kneuterdijk-1|archive-date=21 October 2014}}</ref>

Diderot's literary reputation during his life rested primarily on his plays and his contributions to the ''Encyclopédie''; many of his most important works, including ''[[Jacques the Fatalist]]'', ''[[Rameau's Nephew]]'', ''[[Paradox of the Actor]]'', and ''[[Le Rêve de d’Alembert|D'Alembert's Dream]]'', were published only after his death.<ref>Norman Hampson. ''The Enlightenment.'' 1968.  Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982. p. 128</ref><ref name=AoV />{{rp|678–679}}<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Gopnik |first1=Adam |title=How the Man of Reason got Radicalized |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/04/how-the-man-of-reason-got-radicalized?mbid=synd_digg |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=27 February 2019}}</ref>
{{toclimit|3}}

==Early life==
[[File:N° 9 de la place dans le centre ville de Langres.jpg|thumb|''N° 9 de la place dans le centre ville de Langres'': in the background on the right side is Diderot's birthplace]]
[[File:Langres - Denis Diderot.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Statue of Denis Diderot in the city of [[Langres]], his birthplace]]

Denis Diderot was born in [[Langres]], [[Province of Champagne|Champagne]]. His parents were [[Didier Diderot]], a [[Cutlery|cutler]], ''maître coutelier'', and Angélique Vigneron. Of Denis' five siblings, three survived to adulthood: Denise Diderot, their youngest brother Pierre-Didier Diderot and, their sister Angélique Diderot. Denis Diderot greatly admired his sister Denise, sometimes referring to her as "a female [[Socrates]]".<ref>Arthur M. Wilson. ''Diderot: The Testing Years, 1713–1759.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1957, p. 14 [https://archive.org/stream/diderotthetestin001232mbp/diderotthetestin001232mbp_djvu.txt]</ref>

Diderot began his formal education at a [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] college in Langres. In 1732 he received the degree of Master of Arts from the University of Paris. He abandoned the idea of entering the clergy in 1735<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely|last=Curran|first=Andrew|publisher=Other Press|year=2019|isbn=978-159051-670-6|pages=319}}</ref> and, instead, decided to study at the [[Paris Law Faculty]]. His study of law was short-lived, however, and in the early 1740s he decided to become a writer and translator.<ref name=":0" /> Because of his refusal to enter one of the [[Profession|learned professions]], he was disowned by his father and, for the next ten years, he lived a [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] existence.<ref name="Arthur Wilson 1972">Arthur Wilson, ''Diderot'' (New York: Oxford, 1972).</ref>

In 1742 he formed a friendship with [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], whom he met while watching games of chess and drinking coffee at the [[Café de la Régence]].<ref name=":0" /> In October 1743, he further alienated his father by marrying [[Anne-Antoinette Diderot|Antoinette Champion]] (1710–1796), a devout Catholic.<ref name=":0" /> Diderot senior considered the match inappropriate, given Champion's low social standing, poor education, fatherless status, and lack of a dowry. She was about three years older than Diderot. She bore Diderot one surviving child, a girl,<ref>Andrew S. Curran, Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely, Other Press, 2019, p. 143</ref> named Angélique, after both Diderot's dead mother and his sister. The death in 1749 of his sister Angélique, a nun, in her convent, may have affected Diderot's opinion of religion. She is assumed to have been the inspiration for his novel about a nun, ''[[La Religieuse (novel)|La Religieuse]]'', in which he depicts a woman who is forced to enter a convent, where she suffers at the hands of her fellow nuns.<ref name="Arthur Wilson 1972"/><ref name="Andrew S. Curran 2019, p. 275">Andrew S. Curran, Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely, Other Press, 2019, p. 275</ref>

Diderot was unfaithful to his wife, and had affairs with Anne-Gabrielle Babuty (who would marry and later divorce the artist [[Jean-Baptiste Greuze]]), [[Madeleine de Puisieux]], [[Louise-Henriette Volland|Sophie Volland]], and [[Mme de Maux]] (Jeanne-Catherine de Maux), to whom he wrote numerous surviving letters and who eventually left him for a younger man.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|675–676}} Diderot's letters to Sophie Volland are known for their candor and are regarded to be "among the literary treasures of the eighteenth century".<ref name=AoV />{{rp|675}}

== Early works ==
Diderot's earliest works included a translation of [[Temple Stanyan]]'s ''History of Greece'' (1743). In 1745, he published a translation of [[Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury|Shaftesbury]]'s ''Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Merit'', to which he had added his own "reflections".<ref name=AoV />{{rp|625}} With two colleagues, [[François-Vincent Toussaint]] and [[Marc-Antoine Eidous]], he produced a translation of [[Robert James (physician)|Robert James]]'s ''Medicinal Dictionary'' (1746–1748).<ref>Mark Twain, "A Majestic Literary Fossil", originally from ''Harper's New Monthly Magazine'', vol. 80, issue 477, pp. 439–444, February 1890. [http://www.harpers.org/AMajesticLiteraryFossil.html Online] at ''Harper's'' site. Accessed 24 September 2006.</ref>

===''Philosophical Thoughts''===
{{main|Philosophical Thoughts}}
In 1746, Diderot wrote his first original work: the ''[[Philosophical Thoughts]]'' (''Pensées philosophiques'').<ref name="Furbank 1992 27">{{cite book|title=Diderot: A Critical Biography|author=P.N. Furbank|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|page=27|year=1992}}</ref><ref>Bryan Magee. The Story of Philosophy. DK Publishing, Inc., New York: 1998. p. 124</ref> In this book, Diderot argued for a reconciliation of reason with feeling so as to establish harmony. According to Diderot, without feeling there is a detrimental effect on virtue, and no possibility of creating sublime work. However, since feeling without discipline can be destructive, reason is necessary to control feeling.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|625}}

At the time Diderot wrote this book he was a deist. Hence there is a defense of [[deism]] in this book, and some arguments against atheism.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|625}} The book also contains criticism of Christianity.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|626}}

===''The Skeptic's Walk''===
{{main|The Skeptic's Walk}}
In 1747, Diderot wrote ''The Skeptic's Walk'' (''Promenade du sceptique'')<ref name="Fellows 1977 41">{{cite book|title=Diderot|author=Otis Fellows|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|page=41|year=1977}}</ref> in which a [[deist]], an [[atheist]], and a [[pantheist]] have a dialogue on the nature of divinity. The deist gives the [[Teleological argument|argument from design]]. The atheist says that the universe is better explained by physics, chemistry, matter, and motion. The pantheist says that the cosmic unity of mind and matter, which are co-eternal and comprise the universe, is God. This work remained unpublished until 1830. Accounts differ as to why. It was either because the local police, warned by the priests of another attack on Christianity, seized the manuscript, or because the authorities forced Diderot to give an undertaking that he would not publish this work.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|626}}

===''The Indiscreet Jewels''===
{{main|The Indiscreet Jewels}}
In 1748, Diderot needed to raise money on short notice. His wife had borne him a child, and his mistress [[Madeleine de Puisieux]] was making financial demands of him. At this time, Diderot had told his mistress that writing a novel was a trivial task, whereupon she challenged him to write one. As a result, Diderot produced ''[[The Indiscreet Jewels]]'' (''Les bijoux indiscrets''). The book is about the magical ring of a Sultan that induces any woman's "discreet jewels"<ref name="Furbank 1992 44">{{cite book|title=Diderot: A Critical Biography|author=P.N. Furbank|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|page=44|year=1992}}</ref><!--START OF NOTE-->{{refn|group=note|''Bijou'' is a slang word meaning the vagina.<ref name="Furbank 1992 44"/>  <!--END OF NOTE-->}} to confess their sexual experiences when the ring is pointed at them.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|626–627}} In all, the ring is pointed at thirty different women in the book—usually at a dinner or a social meeting—with the Sultan typically being visible to the woman.<ref name="RousseauPorter1990"/><ref name=AoV />{{rp|627}} However, since the ring has the additional property of making its owner invisible when required, a few of the sexual experiences recounted are through direct observation with the Sultan making himself invisible and placing his person in the unsuspecting woman's boudoir.<ref name="RousseauPorter1990">{{cite book|last=Rodin Pucci|first=Suzanne|editor1=George Sebastian Rousseau|editor-link1=George Rousseau|editor2=Roy Porter|editor-link2=Roy Porter|title=Exoticism in the Enlightenment|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TNNRAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA156|access-date=12 December 2016|year=1990|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0719026775|page=156|chapter=The discreet charms of the exotic: fictions of the harem in eighteenth-century France}}</ref>

Besides the bawdiness, there are several digressions into philosophy, music, and literature in the book. In one such philosophical digression, the Sultan has a dream in which he sees a child named "Experiment" growing bigger and stronger till the child demolishes an ancient temple named "Hypothesis". The book proved to be lucrative for Diderot even though it could only be sold clandestinely. It is Diderot's most published work.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|627}}

The book is believed to draw upon the 1742 [[libertine novel]] [[The Sofa: A Moral Tale|''Le Sopha'']] by [[Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon]] (Crébillon fils).<ref name=AoV />{{rp|627}}

===Scientific work===
Diderot kept writing on science in a desultory way all his life. The scientific work of which he was most proud was ''Memoires sur differents sujets de mathematique'' (1748). This work contains original ideas on [[acoustics]], tension, [[air resistance]], and "a project for a new organ" that could be played by all. Some of Diderot's scientific works were applauded by contemporary publications of his time such as ''The Gentleman's Magazine'', the ''Journal des savants''; and the Jesuit publication ''Journal de Trevoux,'' which invited more such work: "on the part of a man as clever and able as M. Diderot seems to be, of whom we should also observe that his style is as elegant, trenchant, and unaffected as it is lively and ingenious."<ref name=AoV />{{rp|627}}

On the unity of nature Diderot wrote, "Without the idea of the whole, philosophy is no more," and, "Everything changes; everything passes; nothing remains but the whole." He wrote of the temporal nature of molecules, and rejected ''[[wikt:emboîtement|emboîtement]]'', the view that organisms are pre-formed in an infinite regression of non-changing germs. He saw minerals and species as part of a spectrum, and he was fascinated with [[hermaphroditism]]. His answer to the universal attraction in [[Corpuscularianism|corpuscular]] physics models was universal elasticity. His view of nature's flexibility foreshadows the discovery of [[evolution]], but it is not [[Darwinistic]] in a strict sense.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gillispie |first=Charles Coulston |author-link=Charles Coulston Gillispie |title=The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas |url=https://archive.org/details/edgeofobjectivit00char/page/190 |url-access=registration |year=1960 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=0691023506 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/edgeofobjectivit00char/page/190 190–191] }}</ref>

===''Letter on the Blind''===
Diderot's celebrated ''[[Letter on the Blind]]'' (''Lettre sur les aveugles à l'usage de ceux qui voient'') (1749) introduced him to the world as an original thinker.{{sfn|Morley|1911}} The subject is a discussion of the relation between reasoning and the [[knowledge]] acquired through perception (the [[sense|five senses]]). The title of his book also evoked some ironic doubt about who exactly were "the blind" under discussion. In the essay, blind English mathematician [[Nicholas Saunderson]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stephens |first1=Mitchell |title=Imagine there's no heaven: how atheism helped create the modern world |date=2014 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=978-1137002600 |oclc=852658386 |pages=123–124 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WN-dAgAAQBAJ&q=9781137002600&pg=PA123 |access-date=21 June 2014}}</ref> argues that, since knowledge derives from the senses, mathematics is the only form of knowledge that both he and a sighted person can agree on. It is suggested that the blind could be taught to read through their sense of touch. (A later essay, ''Lettre sur les sourds et muets'', considered the case of a similar deprivation in the [[deaf]] and [[speech disorder|mute]].) According to [[Jonathan Israel]], what makes the ''Lettre sur les aveugles'' so remarkable, however, is its distinct, if undeveloped, presentation of the theory of [[Genetic variability|variation]] and [[natural selection]].<ref>Diderot's contemporary, also a Frenchman, [[Pierre Louis Maupertuis]]—who in 1745 was named Head of the Prussian Academy of Science under [[Frederic the Great]]—was developing similar ideas. These proto-evolutionary theories were by no means as thought out and systematic as those of [[Charles Darwin]] a hundred years later.</ref>

<blockquote>This powerful essay, for which [[La Mettrie]] expressed warm appreciation in 1751, revolves around a remarkable deathbed scene in which a dying blind philosopher, Saunderson, rejects the arguments of a [[Deism|deist]] clergyman who endeavours to win him around to a belief in a [[Divine Providence|providential]] God during his last hours. Saunderson's arguments are those of a neo-[[Spinoza|Spinozist]] [[Naturalism (philosophy)|Naturalist]] and [[fatalist]], using a sophisticated notion of the [[Spontaneous generation|self-generation]] and natural evolution of species without creation or supernatural intervention. The notion of [[Materialism|"thinking matter"]] is upheld and the "[[argument from design]]" discarded (following La Mettrie) as hollow and unconvincing.

The work appeared anonymously in Paris in June 1749, and was vigorously suppressed by the authorities. Diderot, who had been under police surveillance since 1747, was swiftly identified as the author, had his manuscripts confiscated, and he was imprisoned for some months, under a ''[[lettre de cachet]]'', on the outskirts of Paris, in the dungeons at [[Vincennes]] where he was visited almost daily by [[Rousseau]], at the time his closest and most assiduous ally.<ref>Jonathan I. Israel, ''Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750.'' ([[Oxford University Press]]. 2001, 2002), p. 710</ref></blockquote>

[[Voltaire]] wrote an enthusiastic letter to Diderot commending the ''Lettre'' and stating that he had held Diderot in high regard for a long time, to which Diderot sent a warm response. Soon after this, Diderot was arrested.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|629–630}}

Science historian [[Conway Zirkle]] has written that Diderot was an [[History of evolutionary thought|early evolutionary thinker]] and noted that his passage that described [[natural selection]] was "so clear and accurate that it almost seems that we would be forced to accept his conclusions as a logical necessity even in the absence of the evidence collected since his time."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Zirkle |first=Conway |author-link=Conway Zirkle |date=25 April 1941 |title=Natural Selection before the 'Origin of Species' |journal=[[Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society]] |location=Philadelphia, PA |publisher=[[American Philosophical Society]] |volume=84 |issue=1 |pages=71–123 |jstor=984852 |issn=0003-049X}}</ref>

==Incarceration and release==
Angered by public resentment over the [[Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748)|Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle]], the government started incarcerating many of its critics. It was decided at this time to rein in Diderot. On 23 July 1749, the governor of the [[Vincennes]] fortress instructed the police to incarcerate Diderot, and the next day he was arrested and placed in solitary confinement at Vincennes. It was at this period that Rousseau visited Diderot in prison and came out a changed man, with newfound ideas about the disadvantages of knowledge, civilization, and Enlightenment – the so-called ''illumination de Vincennes''.<ref>Andrew S. Curran, ''Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely'', Other Press, 2019, pp. 95–96</ref>

Diderot had been permitted to retain one book that he had in his possession at the time of his arrest, ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', which he read during his incarceration. He wrote notes and annotations on the book, using a toothpick as a pen, and ink that he made by scraping slate from the walls and mixing it with wine.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|630}}

In August 1749, [[Émilie du Châtelet|Mme du Chatelet]], presumably at [[Voltaire]]'s behest, wrote to the governor of Vincennes, who was her relative, pleading for Diderot to be lodged more comfortably during his incarceration. The governor then offered Diderot access to the great halls of the Vincennes castle and the freedom to receive books and visitors providing he wrote a document of submission.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|630}} On 13 August 1749, Diderot wrote to the governor:

{{blockquote|I admit to you ... that the ''Pensées'', the ''Bijoux'', and the ''Lettre sur les aveugles'' are debaucheries of the mind that escaped from me; but I can ... promise you on my honor (and I do have honor) that they will be the last, and that they are the only ones ... As for those who have taken part in the publication of these works, nothing will be hidden from you. I shall depose verbally, in the depths [secrecy] of your heart, the names both of the publishers and the printers.<ref name="DurantDurant2011">{{cite book|author1=Will Durant|author2=Ariel Durant|title=The Age of Voltaire: The Story of Civilization, Volume IX|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OXXlCgQR4V8C&pg=PT781|year=2011|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-1451647662|page=781}}</ref>}}

On 20 August, Diderot was moved to a comfortable room in the fortess and allowed to meet visitors and walk within the gardens. On 23 August, Diderot signed another letter promising never to leave the prison without permission.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|631}} On 3 November 1749, he was given his freedom.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|632}} Subsequently, in 1750, he released the prospectus for the ''[[Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers|Encyclopédie]]''.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|633}}

== Encyclopédie ==
{{Main|Encyclopédie}}

===Genesis===
[[File:Encyclopedie de D'Alembert et Diderot - Premiere Page - ENC 1-NA5.jpg|thumb|Title page of the {{lang|fr|[[Encyclopédie]]}}]]

[[André le Breton]], a bookseller and printer, approached Diderot with a project for the publication of a translation of [[Ephraim Chambers]]' ''[[Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences]]'' into French, first undertaken by the Englishman [[John Mills (encyclopedist)|John Mills]], and followed by the German [[Gottfried Sellius]].<ref name="EB1911"/> Diderot accepted the proposal, and transformed it. He persuaded Le Breton to publish a new work, which would consolidate ideas and knowledge from the [[Republic of Letters]]. The publishers found capital for a larger enterprise than they had first planned. [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]] was persuaded to become Diderot's colleague, and permission was procured from the government.

In 1750, an elaborate prospectus announced the project, and the first volume was published in 1751.<ref name="EB1911"/> This work was unorthodox and advanced for the time. Diderot stated that "An encyclopedia ought to make good the failure to execute such a project hitherto, and should encompass not only the fields already covered by the academies, but each and every branch of human knowledge." Comprehensive knowledge will give "the power to change men's common way of thinking."<ref>Examples are Diderot's articles on Asian philosophy and religion; see [[Urs App]]. ''The Birth of Orientalism''. Philadelphia: [[University of Pennsylvania Press]], 2010 ({{ISBN|978-0812242614}}), pp. 133–187.</ref> The work combined scholarship with information on trades. Diderot emphasized the abundance of knowledge within each subject area. Everyone would benefit from these insights.

===Controversies===
Diderot's work, however, was mired in controversy from the beginning; the project was suspended by the courts in 1752. Just as the second volume was completed, accusations arose regarding seditious content, concerning the editor's entries on religion and natural law. Diderot was detained and his house was searched for manuscripts for subsequent articles: but the search proved fruitless as no manuscripts could be found. They had been hidden in the house of an unlikely confederate—[[Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes|Chretien de Lamoignon Malesherbes]], who originally ordered the search. Although Malesherbes was a staunch absolutist, and loyal to the monarchy—he was sympathetic to the literary project.<ref>Andrew S. Curran, Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely, Other Press, 2019, pp. 161–164</ref> Along with his support, and that of other well-placed influential confederates, the project resumed. Diderot returned to his efforts only to be constantly embroiled in controversy.

These twenty years were to Diderot not merely a time of incessant drudgery, but harassing persecution and desertion of friends. The ecclesiastical party detested the ''Encyclopédie'', in which they saw a rising stronghold for their philosophic enemies. By 1757, they could endure it no longer—the subscribers had grown from 2,000 to 4,000, a measure of the growth of the work in popular influence and power.<ref name="EB1911"/> Diderot wanted the ''Encyclopédie'' to give all the knowledge of the world to the people of France. However, the ''Encyclopédie'' threatened the governing social classes of France (aristocracy) because it took for granted the justice of [[religious tolerance]], [[freedom of thought]], and the value of science and industry.<ref>Lyons, Martyn. "Books: A Living History". Getty Publishing, 2011,  p. 107.</ref> It asserted the doctrine that the main concern of the nation's government ought to be the nation's common people. It was believed that the ''Encyclopédie'' was the work of an organized band of conspirators against society, and that the dangerous ideas they held were made truly formidable by their open publication. In 1759, the ''Encyclopédie'' was formally suppressed.<ref name="EB1911"/> The decree did not stop the work, which went on, but its difficulties increased by the necessity of being clandestine. [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]] withdrew from the enterprise and other powerful colleagues, including [[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune]], declined to contribute further to a book that had acquired a bad reputation.{{sfn|Morley|1911}}

===Diderot's contribution===
Diderot was left to finish the task as best he could. He wrote approximately 7,000 articles,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/15/denis-diderot-america-donald-trump|title='Beware the affluence of gold': on reading Diderot in the age of Trump|last=Curran|first=Andrew S.|date=15 December 2018|work=The Guardian|access-date=5 February 2019|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> some very slight, but many of them laborious, comprehensive, and long. He damaged his eyesight correcting proofs and editing the manuscripts of less scrupulous contributors. He spent his days at workshops, mastering manufacturing processes, and his nights writing what he had learned during the day. He was incessantly harassed by threats of police raids. The last copies of the first volume were issued in 1765.

In 1764, when his immense work was drawing to an end, he encountered a crowning mortification: he discovered that the bookseller, Le Breton, fearing the government's displeasure, had struck out from the proof sheets, after they had left Diderot's hands, all passages that he considered too dangerous. "He and his printing-house overseer", writes Furbank, "had worked in complete secrecy, and had moreover deliberately destroyed the author's original manuscript so that the damage could not be repaired."<ref>P. N. Furbank. ''Diderot: A Critical Biography.'' New York: Knopf, 1992, p. 273.</ref> The monument to which Diderot had given the labor of twenty long and oppressive years was irreparably mutilated and defaced.<ref name="EB1911"/> It was 12 years, in 1772, before the subscribers received the final 28 folio volumes of the ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' since the first volume had been published.{{clarify|date=August 2023}}

When Diderot's work on the ''Encyclopédie'' project came to an end in 1765, he expressed concerns to his friends that the twenty-five years he had spent on the project had been wasted.<ref name=":0" />

== Mature works ==
Although the ''Encyclopédie'' was Diderot's most monumental product, he was the author of many other works that sowed nearly every intellectual field with new and creative ideas.<ref name="EB1911"/> Diderot's writing ranges from a graceful trifle like the ''Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre'' (''Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown'') up to the heady ''[[D'Alembert's Dream]]'' (''Le Rêve de d'Alembert'') (composed 1769), a philosophical dialogue in which he plunges into the depths of the controversy as to the ultimate constitution of [[matter]] and the [[Meaning of life (philosophy)|meaning of life]].<ref name="EB1911"/> ''[[Jacques le fataliste]]'' (written between 1765 and 1780, but not published until 1792 in German and 1796 in French) is similar to ''[[The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman|Tristram Shandy]]'' and ''The Sentimental Journey'' in its challenge to the conventional novel's structure and content.<ref>Jacques Smietanski, ''Le Réalisme dans Jacques le Fataliste'' (Paris: Nizet, 1965); Will McMorran, ''The Inn and the Traveller: Digressive Topographies in the Early Modern European Novel'' (Oxford: Legenda, 2002).</ref>

===''La Religieuse'' (''The Nun'' or ''Memoirs of a Nun'')===
''[[La Religieuse (novel)|La Religieuse]]'' was a novel that claimed to show the corruption of the Catholic Church's institutions.

====Plot====
The novel began not as a work for literary consumption, but as an elaborate practical joke aimed at luring the [[Marc-Antoine-Nicolas de Croismare|Marquis de Croismare]], a companion of Diderot's, back to Paris. ''The Nun'' is set in the 18th century, that is, contemporary France. Suzanne Simonin is an intelligent and sensitive sixteen-year-old French girl who is forced against her will into a Catholic convent by her parents. Suzanne's parents initially inform her that she is being sent to the convent for financial reasons. However, while in the convent, she learns that she is actually there because she is an illegitimate child, as her mother committed adultery. By sending Suzanne to the convent, her mother thought she could make amends for her sins by using her daughter as a sacrificial offering.

At the convent, Suzanne suffers humiliation, harassment and violence because she refuses to make the vows of the religious community. She eventually finds companionship with the Mother Superior, Sister de Moni, who pities Suzanne's anguish. After Sister de Moni's death, the new Mother Superior, Sister Sainte-Christine, does not share the same empathy for Suzanne that her predecessor had, blaming Suzanne for the death of Sister de Moni. Suzanne is physically and mentally harassed by Sister Sainte-Christine, almost to the point of death.

Suzanne contacts her lawyer, Monsieur Manouri, who attempts to legally free her from her vows. Manouri manages to have Suzanne transferred to another convent, Sainte-Eutrope. At the new convent, the Mother Superior is revealed to be a lesbian, and she grows affectionate towards Suzanne. The Mother Superior attempts to seduce Suzanne, but her innocence and chastity eventually drives the Mother Superior to insanity, leading to her death.

Suzanne escapes the Sainte-Eutrope convent using the help of a priest. Following her liberation, she lives in fear of being captured and taken back to the convent as she awaits the help from Diderot's friend the [[Marc-Antoine-Nicolas de Croismare|Marquis de Croismare]].

====Analysis====
Diderot's novel was not aimed at condemning  Christianity as such but at criticizing cloistered religious life.<ref name="Andrew S. Curran 2019, p. 275"/> In Diderot's telling, some critics have claimed,{{Who|date=October 2024}} the Church is depicted as fostering a hierarchical society, exemplified in the power dynamic between the Mother Superior and the girls in the convent, forced as they are against their will to take the vows and endure what is to them the intolerable life of the convent. On this view, the subjection of the unwilling young women to convent life dehumanized them by repressing their sexuality. Moreover, their plight would have been all the more oppressive since it should be remembered that in France at this period, religious vows were recognized, regulated and enforced not only by the Church but also by the civil authorities. Some broaden their interpretation to suggest that Diderot was out to expose more general victimization of women by the Catholic Church, that forced them to accept the fate imposed upon them by a hierarchical society.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

====Posthumous publication====
Although ''The Nun'' was completed in about 1780, the work was not published until 1796, after Diderot's death.

===''Rameau's Nephew''===
The dialogue ''[[Rameau's Nephew]]'' (French: ''Le Neveu de Rameau'') is a "farce-tragedy" reminiscent of the ''Satires'' of [[Horace]], a favorite classical author of Diderot's whose lines "Vertumnis, quotquot sunt, natus iniquis" ("Born under (the influence of) the unfavorable (gods) Vertumnuses, however many they are") appear as epigraph. According to Nicholas Cronk, ''Rameau's Nephew'' is "arguably the greatest work of the French Enlightenment's greatest writer."<ref name=":1">Nicholas Cronk, "Introduction", in ''Rameau's Nephew and First Satire'', Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006 (pp. vii–xxv), p. vii.</ref>

[[File:Un dîner de philosophes.Jean Huber.jpg|thumb|300px|''Le Dîner des philosophes'' painted by [[Jean Huber]]. Denis Diderot is the second from the right (seated).]]

====Synopsis====
The narrator in the book recounts a conversation with {{ill|Jean-François Rameau|fr|Jean-François Rameau|lt=Jean-François Rameau,}} nephew of the famous composer [[Jean-Philippe Rameau]]. The nephew composes and teaches music with some success but feels disadvantaged by his name and is jealous of his uncle. Eventually he sinks into an indolent and debauched state. After his wife's death, he loses all self-esteem and his brusque manners result in him being ostracized by former friends. A character profile of the nephew is now sketched by Diderot: a man who was once wealthy and comfortable with a pretty wife, who is now living in poverty and decadence, shunned by his friends. And yet this man retains enough of his past to analyze his despondency philosophically and maintains his sense of humor. Essentially he believes in nothing—not in religion, nor in morality; nor in the  Roussean view about nature being better than civilization since in his opinion every species in nature consumes one another.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|660}} He views the same process at work in the economic world where men consume each other through the legal system.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|660–661}} The wise man, according to the nephew, will consequently practice hedonism:

{{Blockquote|Hurrah for wisdom and philosophy!—the wisdom of Solomon: to drink good wines, gorge on choice foods, tumble pretty women, sleep on downy beds; outside of that, all is vanity.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|661}}}}

The dialogue ends with Diderot calling the nephew a wastrel, a coward, and a glutton devoid of spiritual values to which the nephew replies: "I believe you are right."<ref name=AoV />{{rp|661}}

====Analysis====
Diderot's intention in writing the dialogue—whether as a satire on contemporary manners, a reduction of the theory of [[Individualism|self-interest]] to an absurdity, the application of [[irony]] to the ethics of ordinary convention, a mere setting for a discussion about music, or a vigorous dramatic sketch of a parasite and a human original—is disputed. In political terms it explores "the bipolarisation of the social classes under absolute monarchy," and insofar as its protagonist demonstrates how the servant often manipulates the master, ''[[Le Neveu de Rameau]]'' can be seen to anticipate Hegel's [[master–slave dialectic]].<ref>Jean Varloot, "Préface", in: Jean Varloot, ed. ''Le Neveu de Rameau et autres dialogues philosophiques'', Paris: Gallimard, 1972 pp. 9–28, pp. 25–26.</ref>

====Posthumous publication====
The publication history of the ''Nephew'' is circuitous. Written between 1761 and 1774, Diderot never saw the work through to publication during his lifetime, and apparently did not even share it with his friends. After Diderot's death, a copy of the text reached [[Friedrich Schiller|Schiller]], who gave it to [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]], who, in 1805, translated the work into German.{{sfn|Morley|1911}} Goethe's translation entered France, and was retranslated into French in 1821. Another copy of the text was published in 1823, but it had been expurgated by Diderot's daughter prior to publication. The original manuscript was only found in 1891.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|659}}

==Visual arts==
Diderot's most intimate friend was the [[philologist]] [[Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm|Friedrich Melchior Grimm]].<ref name=AoV />{{rp|677}} They were brought together by their common friend at that time, [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]].<ref name=AoV />{{rp|632}} In 1753, Grimm began writing a newsletter, the ''La Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique'', which he would send to various high personages in Europe.<ref name="Jacobs">{{cite web|url=http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2014/02/grimm-heirs.html|title=Grimm's Heirs|date=11 February 2014|work=The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society|first=Alan|last=Jacobs|access-date=16 August 2015|archive-date=16 April 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416182421/http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2014/02/grimm-heirs.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1759, Grimm asked Diderot to report on the biennial art exhibitions in the [[Louvre]] for the ''Correspondance''. Diderot reported on the [[Salon (Paris)|Salons]] between 1759 and 1771 and again in 1775 and 1781.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|666–687}} Diderot's reports would become "the most celebrated contributions to La Correspondance."<ref name="Jacobs"/>

According to [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve]], Diderot's reports initiated the French into a new way of laughing, and introduced people to the mystery and purport of colour by ideas. "Before Diderot", [[Germaine de Staël|Anne Louise Germaine de Staël]] wrote, "I had never seen anything in pictures except dull and lifeless colours; it was his imagination that gave them relief and life, and it is almost a new sense for which I am indebted to his genius".<ref name="EB1911"/>

Diderot had appended an ''Essai sur la peinture'' to his report on the 1765 Salon in which he expressed his views on artistic beauty. [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]] described the ''Essai sur la peinture'' as "a magnificent work; it speaks even more usefully to the poet than to the painter, though for the painter too it is a torch of blazing illumination".<ref name=AoV />{{rp|668}}

[[Jean-Baptiste Greuze]] (1725–1805) was Diderot's favorite contemporary artist.<ref>[[Edmond de Goncourt|Edmond]] and [[Jules de Goncourt]], ''French Eighteenth-Century Painters''. Cornell Paperbacks, 1981, pp. 222–225. {{ISBN|0801492181}}</ref> Diderot appreciated Greuze's sentimentality, and more particularly Greuze's portrayals of his wife who had once been Diderot's mistress.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|668}}

==Theatre==
Diderot wrote sentimental plays, ''[[Le Fils naturel]]'' (1757) and ''[[Le Père de famille]]'' (1758), accompanying them with essays on theatrical theory and practice, including "Les Entretiens sur ''Le Fils Naturel''" (Conversations on ''The Natural Son''), in which he announced the principles of a new drama: the 'serious genre', a realistic midpoint between comedy and tragedy that stood in opposition to the stilted conventions of the classical French stage.  In 1758, Diderot introduced the concept of the [[fourth wall]], the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled [[box set (theatre)|box set]] in a [[proscenium]] theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play.<ref name="Bell">{{Cite book |last=Bell |first=Elizabeth S. |title=Theories of Performance |year=2008 |publisher=Sage |location=Los Angeles | isbn = 978-1412926379 |page=203 }}</ref><ref name="Wallis">{{cite book |last1=Wallis |first1=Mick |last2=Shepherd |first2=Simon |title=Studying plays |year=1998 |publisher=Arnold |location=London | isbn = 0340731567 |page=214 }}</ref><ref name="Abelman">{{Cite book |last=Abelman |first=Robert |title=Reaching a critical mass: a critical analysis of television entertainment |year=1998 |publisher=L. Erlbaum Associates |location=Mahwah, NJ |isbn=0805821996 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781622492886/page/8 8–11] |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781622492886/page/8 }}</ref> He also wrote ''[[Paradox of the Actor|Paradoxe sur le comédien]]'' (''Paradox of the Actor''), written between 1770 and 1778 but first published after his death in 1830, which is a dramatic essay elucidating a theory of acting in which it is argued that great actors do not experience the emotions they are displaying.<!--START OF NOTE-->{{refn|group=note|This contradicts the view of [[Horace]] with regard to the use of emotion in [[rhetoric]]: ''Si vis me flere, primium tibi flendum est'' (If you wish me to weep you must first weep yourself).<ref name=AoV />{{rp|624}}   <!--END OF NOTE-->}} That essay is also of note for being where the term ''[[l'esprit de l'escalier]]'' (or ''[[l'esprit d'escalier]]'') comes from. It is a French term used in English for the predicament of thinking of the perfect reply too late.<!--French ''sensible'' translates to English "sensitive", NOT "sensible" (it is a false cognate). Please refrain from changing the English version to "sensible". .-->

==Diderot and Catherine the Great==
===Journey to Russia===
[[File:Diderot's travel from Paris to Saint Petersburg in 1773-1774 map-en.svg|thumb|300px|Diderot's travel from Paris to Saint Petersburg in 1773–1774. The '''blue line''' marks the outward from 3 June 1773 until 9 October 1773, and the '''red line''' marks the return journey 5 March 1774 to 21 October 1774.]]

When the Russian Empress [[Catherine the Great]] heard that Diderot was in need of money, she arranged to buy his library and appoint him caretaker of it until his death, at a salary of 1,000 livres per year. She even paid him 50 years salary in advance.<ref name=":0" /> Although Diderot hated traveling,<ref name=AoV />{{rp|674}} he was obliged to visit her.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|448}}

On 9 October 1773, he reached Saint Petersburg, met Catherine the next day and they had several discussions on various subjects. During his five-month stay at her court, he met her almost every day.<ref name=RaR />{{rp|448–449}} During these conversations, he would later state, they spoke 'man to man'.<ref name=RaR />{{rp|448}}<!--START OF NOTE-->{{refn|group=note|Diderot later narrated the following conversation as having taken place:

{{blockquote|''Catherine'': "You have a hot head, and I have one too. We interrupt each other, we do not hear what the other one says, and so we say stupid things."

''Diderot'': "With this difference, that when I interrupt your Majesty, I commit a great impertinence."

''Catherine'': "No, between men there is no such thing as impertinence."<ref name="Furbank 1992 379">{{cite book|title=Diderot: A Critical Biography|author=P.N. Furbank|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|page=379|year=1992}}</ref>}}  <!--END OF NOTE-->}}

He would occasionally make his point by slapping her thighs. In a letter to [[Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin|Madame Geoffrin]], Catherine wrote:

{{Blockquote|Your Diderot is an extraordinary man. I emerge from interviews with him with my thighs bruised and quite black. I have been obliged to put a table between us to protect myself and my members.<ref name=RaR />{{rp|448}}}}
One of the topics discussed was Diderot's ideas about how to transform Russia into a utopia. In a letter to [[Louis Philippe, comte de Ségur|Comte de Ségur]], the Empress wrote that if she followed Diderot's advice, chaos would ensue in her kingdom.<ref name=RaR />{{rp|448}}

===Back in France===
When returning, Diderot asked the Empress for 1,500 rubles as reimbursement for his trip. She gave him 3,000 rubles, an expensive ring, and an officer to escort him back to Paris. He wrote a eulogy in her honor upon reaching Paris.<ref name=RaR />{{rp|449}}

In 1766, when Catherine heard that Diderot had not received his annual fee for editing the ''Encyclopédie'' (an important source of income for the philosopher), she arranged for him to receive a massive sum of 50,000 livres as an advance for his services as her librarian.<ref name=":0" />

In July 1784, upon hearing that Diderot was in poor health, Catherine arranged for him to move into a luxurious suite in the ''Rue de Richelieu''. Diderot died two weeks after moving there—on 31 July 1784.<ref name=RaR />{{rp|893}}

Among Diderot's last works were notes "On the Instructions of her Imperial Majesty...for the Drawing up of Laws". This commentary on Russia included replies to some arguments Catherine had made in the [[Nakaz]].<ref name=RaR />{{rp|449}}<ref name="Furbank 1992 393"/> Diderot wrote that Catherine was certainly despotic, due to circumstances and training, but was not inherently tyrannical. Thus, if she wished to destroy despotism in Russia, she should abdicate her throne and destroy anyone who tries to revive the monarchy.<ref name="Furbank 1992 393">{{cite book|title=Diderot: A Critical Biography|author=P.N. Furbank|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|page=393|year=1992}}</ref> She should publicly declare that "there is no true sovereign other than the nation, and there can be no true legislator other than the people."<ref name="Furbank 1992 394">{{cite book|title=Diderot: A Critical Biography|author=P.N. Furbank|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|page=394|year=1992}}</ref> She should create a new Russian legal code establishing an independent legal framework and starting with the text: "We the people, and we the sovereign of this people, swear conjointly these laws, by which we are judged equally."<ref name="Furbank 1992 394"/> In the ''Nakaz'', Catherine had written: "It is for legislation to follow the spirit of the nation."<ref name="Furbank 1992 394"/> Diderot's rebuttal stated that it is for legislation to ''make'' the spirit of the nation. For instance, he argued, it is not appropriate to make public executions unnecessarily horrific.<ref name="Furbank 1992 394-5">{{cite book|title=Diderot: A Critical Biography|author=P.N. Furbank|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|pages=394–395|year=1992}}</ref>

Ultimately, Diderot decided not to send these notes to Catherine; however, they were delivered to her with his other papers after he died. When she read them, she was furious and commented that they were an incoherent gibberish devoid of prudence, insight, and verisimilitude.<ref name=RaR />{{rp|449}}<ref name="Furbank 1992 395">{{cite book|title=Diderot: A Critical Biography|author=P.N. Furbank|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|page=395|year=1992}}</ref>

== Philosophy ==
[[File:Denis Diderot portrait.jpg|thumb|[[Dmitry Levitzky]], ''Denis Diderot'', 1773, [[Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Geneva)|Musée d'Art et d'Histoire]], Geneva]]
In his youth, Diderot was originally a follower of [[Voltaire]] and his [[Deism|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 ''[[The Skeptic's Walk]]'' (1747).<ref>Jonathan I. Israel, ''Enlightenment Contested'', Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 791, 818.</ref> Diderot opposed mysticism and occultism, which were highly prevalent in France at the time he wrote, and believed religious truth claims must fall under the domain of reason, not mystical experience or esoteric secrets. However, Diderot showed some interest in the work of [[Paracelsus]].<ref>{{Cite book | last = Josephson-Storm | first = Jason | title = The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences | location = Chicago | publisher = University of Chicago Press | date = 2017 |pages = 53–55 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xZ5yDgAAQBAJ | isbn = 978-0226403366 }}</ref> He was "a philosopher in whom all the contradictions of the time struggle with one another" ([[Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz|Rosenkranz]]).{{sfn|Morley|1911}}

In his 1754 book ''[[On the interpretation of Nature]]'', Diderot expounded on his views about nature, evolution, materialism, mathematics, and experimental science.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|651–652}}<ref name="Furbank 1992 109-115">{{cite book|title=Diderot: A Critical Biography|author=P.N. Furbank|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|pages=109–115|year=1992}}</ref> It is speculated that Diderot may have contributed to his friend [[Baron d'Holbach]]'s 1770 book ''[[The System of Nature]]''.{{sfn|Morley|1911}} Diderot had enthusiastically endorsed the book stating that: {{blockquote|What I like is a philosophy clear, definite, and frank, such as you have in the ''System of Nature''. The author is not an atheist on one page and a deist on another. His philosophy is all of one piece.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|700}}}}

In conceiving the ''Encyclopédie'', Diderot had thought of the work as a fight on behalf of posterity and had expressed confidence that posterity would be grateful for his effort. According to Diderot, "posterity is for the philosopher what the 'other world' is for the man of religion."<ref name=AoV />{{rp|641}}

According to Andrew S. Curran, the main questions of Diderot's thought are the following :<ref>Andrew S. Curran, Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely, Other Press, 2019, p. 14</ref>
* Why be moral in a world without god?
* How should we appreciate art?
* What are we and where do we come from?
* What are sex and love?
* How can a philosopher intervene in political affairs?

== Death and burial ==
Diderot died of [[Pulmonary embolism|pulmonary thrombosis]] in Paris on 31 July 1784, and was buried in the city's [[Saint-Roch, Paris|Église Saint-Roch]]. His heirs sent his vast library to Catherine II, who had it deposited at the [[National Library of Russia]]. He has several times been denied burial in the [[Panthéon, Paris|Panthéon]] with other French notables.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Blom|first=Philipp|author-link=Philipp Blom|title=In the Panthéon|url=http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/on-history/in-the-pantheon.php?page=all|journal=[[Lapham's Quarterly]]|access-date=27 January 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121113165624/http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/on-history/in-the-pantheon.php?page=all|archive-date=13 November 2012}}</ref>

Diderot's remains were unearthed by [[grave robbers]] in 1793, leaving his corpse on the church's floor. His remains were then presumably transferred to a mass grave by the authorities.<ref>Andrew S. Curran, ''Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely'', Other Press, 2019, pp. 1–2</ref>

==Appreciation and influence==
[[File:Jean-Simon Berthélemy - Bildnis eines Herrn mit der Büste des Denis Diderot.jpg|thumb|[[Jean-Simon Berthélemy]], Young man admiring Denis Diderot's bust]]

[[Jean-François Marmontel|Marmontel]] and {{ill|Henri Meister|fr|Jacques-Henri Meister}} commented on the great pleasure of having intellectual conversations with Diderot.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|678}} [[André Morellet|Morellet]], a regular attendee at [[Baron d'Holbach#D'Holbach's salon|D'Holbach's salon]], wrote: "It is there that I heard...Diderot treat questions of philosophy, art, or literature, and by his wealth of expression, fluency, and inspired appearance, hold our attention for a long stretch of time."<ref name = "Wilson 1972 175">{{cite book|title=Diderot|url=https://archive.org/details/diderot0000wils|url-access=limited|author=Arthur M. Wilson|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/diderot0000wils/page/175 175] |year=1972}}</ref> Diderot's contemporary, and rival, [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Jean Jacques Rousseau]] wrote in his ''Confessions'' that after a few centuries Diderot would be accorded as much respect by posterity as was given to Plato and Aristotle.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|678}} In Germany, [[Goethe]], [[Schiller]], and Lessing<ref name=AoV />{{rp|679}} expressed admiration for Diderot's writings, Goethe pronouncing Diderot's ''[[Rameau's Nephew]]'' to be "the classical work of an outstanding man" and that "Diderot is Diderot, a unique individual; whoever carps at him and his affairs is a philistine."<ref name=AoV />{{rp|659}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hammer |first1=Carl Jr. |title=Goethe and Rousseau: Resonances of the Mind |date=2015 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |page=26}}</ref>

As atheism fell out of favor during the French Revolution, Diderot was vilified and considered responsible for the excessive persecution of the clergy.<ref>Andrew S. Curran, ''Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely'', Other Press, 2019, pp. 395–397</ref>

In the next century, Diderot was admired by [[Honoré de Balzac|Balzac]], [[Eugène Delacroix|Delacroix]], [[Stendhal]], [[Émile Zola|Zola]], and [[Schopenhauer]].<ref>P. N. Furbank. ''Diderot: A Critical Biography.'' New York: Knopf, 1992. p. 446</ref> According to [[Auguste Comte|Comte]], Diderot was the foremost intellectual in an exciting age.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|679}} Historian [[Jules Michelet|Michelet]] described him as "the true Prometheus" and stated that Diderot's ideas would continue to remain influential long into the future. [[Karl Marx|Marx]] chose Diderot as his "favourite prose-writer."<ref>David McClellan. ''Karl Marx: His Life and Thought.'' New York: Harper & Row, 1973. p. 457</ref>

==Modern tributes==
[[File:Diderot-statue.jpg|thumb|Monument to Denis Diderot in Paris, [[6th arrondissement of Paris|6th arrondissement]], by [[Jean Gautherin]]]]

[[Otis Fellows]] and Norman Torrey have described Diderot as "the most interesting and provocative figure of the French eighteenth century."<ref>{{citation |author = Ottis Fellows and Norman Torrey|title=Diderot Studies |volume=1|year=1949 |page=vii}}</ref>

In 1993, American writer Cathleen Schine published ''Rameau's Niece'', a satire of academic life in New York that took as its premise a woman's research into an (imagined) 18th-century pornographic parody of Diderot's ''Rameau's Nephew''. The book was praised by Michiko Kakutani in the ''New York Times'' as "a nimble philosophical satire of the academic mind" and "an enchanting comedy of modern manners."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/11/specials/schine-niece.html|title=Specials|website=www.nytimes.com}}</ref>

French author Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt wrote a play titled ''Le Libertin'' (''The Libertine'') which imagines a day in Diderot's life including a fictional sitting for a woman painter which becomes sexually charged but is interrupted by the demands of editing the ''Encyclopédie''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.eric-emmanuel-schmitt.com/theatre.cfm?nomenclatureId=1796&catalogid=801&&lang=EN|title=Theatre|website=www.eric-emmanuel-schmitt.com}}</ref> It was first staged at Paris' Théâtre Montparnasse in 1997 starring Bernard Giraudeau as Diderot and Christiane Cohendy as Madame Therbouche and was well received by critics.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theatreonline.com/Artiste/Eric-Emmanuel-Schmitt/9756|title=Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt|website=www.theatreonline.com}}</ref>

In 2013, the 300th anniversary of Diderot's birth, his hometown of Langres held a series of events in his honor and produced an audio tour of the town highlighting places that were part of Diderot's past, including the remains of the convent where his sister Angélique took her vows.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://diderot2013-langres.fr/|title=Club de trading IQ Option & eToro Diderot|publisher=Club basé à Diderot Langres|website=diderot2013-langres.fr|access-date=14 May 2014|archive-date=2 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502172003/http://diderot2013-langres.fr/|url-status=dead}}</ref> On 6 October 2013, a museum of the Enlightenment focusing on Diderot's contributions to the movement, the [[Denis Diderot House Of Enlightenment (France)|Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot]], was inaugurated in Langres.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://champagne-ardenne.france3.fr/diderot-2013-langres-en-fete|title=Diderot 2013, Langres en fête |date=23 June 2023 |publisher=France 3 Grand Est}}</ref>

The French government considered memorializing the 300th anniversary of his birth,<ref>{{cite news |last=Curran|first=Andrew S.|title=Diderot, an American Exemplar? Bien Sûr!|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/opinion/diderot-an-american-exemplar-bien-sur.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220101/https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/opinion/diderot-an-american-exemplar-bien-sur.html |archive-date=2022-01-01 |url-access=limited|access-date=27 January 2013|newspaper=New York Times|date=24 January 2013}}{{cbignore}}</ref> but this did not come to pass.

== Bibliography ==
{{more citations needed|section|date=July 2017}}
* ''Essai sur le mérite et la vertu'', written by [[Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury|Shaftesbury]] French translation and annotation by Diderot (1745)
* ''[[Philosophical Thoughts]]'', essay (1746)<ref>{{Citation |last1=Wolfe |first1=Charles T. |title=Denis Diderot |date=2024-01-01 |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/diderot/ |access-date=2024-10-02 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |last2=Shank |first2=J.B.}}</ref>
* ''[[La Promenade du sceptique]]'' (1747)
* ''[[The Indiscreet Jewels]]'', novel (1748)
* ''[[Lettre sur les aveugles à l'usage de ceux qui voient]]'' (1749)
* {{lang|fr|[[Encyclopédie]]}} (1750–1765)
* ''[[Lettre sur les sourds et muets]]'' (1751)
* ''[[Pensées sur l'interprétation de la nature]]'', essai (1751)
* ''[[Systeme de la Nature]]'' (1754)
* ''[[Le Fils naturel]]'' (1757)
* ''Entretiens sur le Fils naturel'' (1757)
* ''[[Le père de famille]]'' (1758)
* ''Discours sur la poesie dramatique'' (1758)
* ''Salons'', critique d'art (1759–1781)
* ''[[La Religieuse (novel)|La Religieuse]]'', Roman (1760; revised in 1770 and in the early 1780s; the novel was first published as a volume posthumously in 1796).
* ''[[Le neveu de Rameau]]'', dialogue (written between 1761 and 1774).<ref name=":1" /><ref>Diderot "Le Neveu de Rameau", ''Les Trésors de la littérature Française'', p. 109. Collection dirigée par Edmond Jaloux; http://www.denis-diderot.com/publications.html</ref>
* ''Lettre sur le commerce de la librairie'' (1763)
* ''[[Jacques le fataliste et son maître]]'', novel (written between 1765 and 1780; first published posthumously in 1796)
* ''[[Mystification (Diderot)|Mystification ou l’histoire des portraits]]'' (1768)
* ''Entretien entre D'Alembert et Diderot'' (1769)
* ''[[Le rêve de D'Alembert]]'', dialogue (1769)
* ''Suite de l'entretien entre D'Alembert et Diderot'' (1769)
* ''[[Paradox of the Actor|Paradoxe sur le comédien]]'' (written between 1770 and 1778; first published posthumously in 1830)
* ''Apologie de l'abbé Galiani'' (1770)
* ''Principes philosophiques sur la matière et le mouvement'', essai (1770)
* ''Entretien d'un père avec ses enfants'' (1771)
* ''[[Ceci n'est pas un conte]]'', story (1772)
* ''[[Madame de La Carlière]]'', short story and moral fable, (1772)
* ''[[Supplément au voyage de Bougainville]]'' (1772)
* ''[[Histoire des deux Indes|Histoire philosophique et politique des deux Indes]]'', in collaboration with [[Guillaume Thomas François Raynal|Raynal]] (1772–1781)<ref name="WDL">{{cite web |url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/4398/ |title = A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies |website = [[World Digital Library]] |year = 1798 |access-date = 30 August 2013 }}</ref>
* ''Voyage en Hollande'' (1773)
* ''Éléments de physiologie'' (1773–1774)
* ''Réfutation d'Helvétius'' (1774)
* ''Observations sur le [[Nakaz]]'' (1774)
* ''Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron'' (1778)
* ''Est-il Bon? Est-il méchant?'' (1781)
* ''Lettre apologétique de l'abbé Raynal à Monsieur Grimm'' (1781)
* ''Aux insurgents d'Amérique'' (1782)

== See also ==
<!-- keep alphabetical -->
{{Refbegin|20em}}
* [[Contributions to liberal theory]]
* [[Diderot effect]]
* [[Encyclopedist]]
* [[Encyclopédistes]]
* [[Leonhard Euler|Euler, Leonhard]]
* [[List of liberal theorists]]
* [[Society of the Friends of Truth]]
* [[Paris Diderot University]]
* [[Denis Diderot House of Enlightenment]]
{{Refend}}
<!-- keep alphabetical -->

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

== References ==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name=AoV>{{cite book|title=The Story of Civilization Volume 9: The Age of Voltaire|first=Will|last=Durant|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=1965}}</ref>
<ref name=RaR>{{cite book|title=The Story of Civilization Volume 10: Rousseau and Revolution|first=Will|last=Durant|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=1967}}</ref>
}}

== Further reading ==
{{French literature sidebar}}
* Anderson, Wilda C. ''Diderot's Dream.'' Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.
* App, Urs (2010). ''The Birth of Orientalism''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, {{ISBN|978-0812242614}}, pp.&nbsp;133–187 on Diderot's role in the European discovery of Hinduism and Buddhism.
* [[Joxe Azurmendi|Azurmendi, Joxe]] (1984). [http://www.jakingunea.com/show/879263b94d32016cd6f94d3b12adc871bec20e97 Entretien d'un philosophe: Diderot (1713–1784)], ''[[Jakin (magazine)|Jakin]]'', 32: 111–121.
* Ballstadt, Kurt P.A. ''Diderot: Natural Philosopher.'' Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2008.
* Blom, Philipp (2010). ''The Wicked Company''. New York: Basic Books
* Blum, Carol (1974). ''Diderot: The Virtue of a Philosopher''
* Brewer, Daniel. ''Using the Encyclopédie: Ways of Knowing, Ways of Reading.'' Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002.
*{{Cite book |last=Carlyle |first=Thomas |title=[[Critical and Miscellaneous Essays]]: Volume III |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |year=1833 |series=The Works of Thomas Carlyle in Thirty Volumes |volume=XXVIII |location=New York |publication-date=1904 |pages=177–248 |chapter=Diderot |author-link=Thomas Carlyle |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/worksofthomascar28carliala/page/n191/mode/2up}}
* Clark, Andrew Herrick. ''Diderot's Part.'' Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2008.
* Caplan, Jay. ''Framed Narratives: Diderot's Genealogy of the Beholder.'' Manchester: Manchester UP, 1986.
* Crocker, Lester G. (1974). ''Diderot's Chaotic Order:  Approach to a Synthesis''
* Curran, Andrew S. (2019). ''Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely''
* D'Antuono, Giuseppina. (2021) "Historiographical heritages: Denis Diderot and the men of the French Revolution." ''Diciottesimo Secolo'' 6 (2021): 161–168. [https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/ds/article/download/11696/12429 online]
* De la Carrera, Rosalina. ''Success in Circuit Lies: Diderot's Communicational Practice.'' Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1991.
* Dlugach, Tamara. ''[https://archive.org/details/DiderotDlugach Denis Diderot]''. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1988.
* Fellows, Otis E. (1989). ''Diderot''
* France, Peter (1983). ''Diderot''
* Fontenay, Elisabeth de, and Jacques Proust. ''Interpréter Diderot Aujourd'hui.'' Paris: Le Sycomore, 1984.
* Furbank, P.N. (1992). ''Diderot: A Critical Biography.'' New York: A.A. Knopf,. {{ISBN|0679414215}}.
* Gregory Efrosini, Mary (2006). ''Diderot and the Metamorphosis of Species'' (Studies in Philosophy). New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|0415955513}}.
* Havens, George R. (1955) ''The Age of Ideas.'' New York: Holt  {{ISBN|0891976515}}.
* Hayes, Julia Candler. ''The Representation of the Self in the Theater of La Chaussée, Diderot, and Sade.'' Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1982.
* Hazard, Paul. ''European thought in the eighteenth century from Montesquieu to Lessing'' (1954). pp.&nbsp;378–394
* Kavanagh, Thomas. "The Vacant Mirror: A Study of Mimesis through Diderot's ''Jacques le Fataliste''," in ''Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century'' 104 (1973).
* Korolev, Serguei V. La Bibliothèque de Diderot: Vers une reconstitution. Ferney-Voltaire: Centre international d'etude du XVIIIe siecle, 2014. {{ISBN|978-2845590939}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last= Kuzincki|first=Jason |editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |title= Diderot, Denis (1713–1784) |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |year=2008 |publisher= [[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n78 |isbn= 978-1412965804 |oclc=750831024| lccn = 2008009151 |pages=124–125 |url-access=subscription }}
* Lentin, A. "Catherine the Great and Denis Diderot" ''History Today'' (May 1972), pp.&nbsp;313–332.
* Mason, John H. (1982). ''The Irresistible Diderot'' {{isbn|0704334690}}
* Peretz, Eyal (2013). "Dramatic Experiments: Life according to Diderot" [[State University of New York Press]]
* Rex, Walter E. ''Diderot's Counterpoints: The Dynamics of Contrariety in His Major Works.'' Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1998.
* Saint-Amand, Pierre. ''Diderot.'' Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri, 1984.
* Simon, Julia (1995). ''Mass Enlightenment.'' Albany: [[State University of New York Press]],. {{ISBN|0791426386}}.
* Tunstall, Kate E. (2011). ''Blindness and Enlightenment. An Essay. With a new translation of Diderot's Letter on the Blind''. Continuum
* Wilson, Arthur McCandless (1972). ''Diderot'', the standard biography
* Vasco, Gerhard M. (1978). "Diderot and Goethe, A Study in Science and Humanism", ''Librairei Slatkine'', ''Libraire Champion''.
* {{cite book |author=Zaretsky, Robert |title=Catherine and Diderot : the Empress, the philosopher, and the Fate of the Enlightenment |publisher=Harvard UP |year=2019 |isbn=978-0674737907}}

=== Primary sources ===
* Diderot, Denis, ed. ''A Diderot Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry, Vol. 1'' (1993 reprint) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0486274284 excerpt and text search]
* Diderot, Denis. ''Diderot: Political Writings'' ed. by John Hope Mason and [[Robert Wokler]] (1992) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521369118 excerpt and text search, with introduction]
* Diderot, Denis. ''Thoughts on Religion'' (2002 edition) Translated and edited by Nicolas Walter. G.W. Foote & Co. Ltd. Freethinker's Classics No. 4. {{ISBN|978-1911578024}}.
* [https://books.google.com/books?as_q=&num=10&lr=&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_brr=1&as_pt=ALLTYPES&lr=lang_en&as_vt=&as_auth=diderot&as_pub=&as_sub=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_isbn=&as_issn= Main works of Diderot in English translation]
* Hoyt, Nellie and Cassirer, Thomas. ''Encyclopedia, Selections: Diderot, D'Alembert, and a Society of Men of Letters.'' New York: [[Bobbs-Merrill Company]], 1965. {{LCCN|6526535}}. {{ISBN|0672604795}}.
* Kemp, Jonathan (ed). ''[https://archive.org/details/diderotinterpreterofnature Diderot, Interpreter of Nature: Selected Writings]''. New York: International Publishers, 1963.

== External links ==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{commons}}

* {{Gutenberg author |id=2071| name=Denis Diderot}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Denis Diderot}}
* {{Librivox author |id=2899}}
* [http://www.paysdevoltaire.eu/internet-une-nouvelle-relation-aux-sources-de-linformation/item/664-moteur-de-recherche-diderot-en-sciences-humaines-et-sociales.html Diderot] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161116020424/http://www.paysdevoltaire.eu/internet-une-nouvelle-relation-aux-sources-de-linformation/item/664-moteur-de-recherche-diderot-en-sciences-humaines-et-sociales.html |date=16 November 2016 }} Search engine in French for human sciences in tribute to Diderot
* [http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/diderot/revedalembert_tofc.htm Denis Diderot: Rêve d'Alembert (d'Alembert's Dream) (French and English texts)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160922201836/http://records.viu.ca/%7EJohnstoi/diderot/revedalembert_tofc.htm |date=22 September 2016 }}
* [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/diderot/1769/conversation.htm Conversation between D'Alembert and Diderot (alternate translation of the first part of the above)]
* [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/diderot/index.htm Denis Diderot Archive] {{in lang|en}}
* [http://www.denis-diderot.com Denis Diderot Website (in French)]
* {{in lang|fr}} [http://diderot.alembert.free.fr/ On line version of the Encyclopédie]. The articles are classified in alphabetical order (26 files).
* [http://encyclopedie.uchicago.edu/ The ARTFL Encyclopédie], provided by the ARTFL Project of the [[University of Chicago]] (articles in French, scans of 18th century print copies provided)
* [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/ 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)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050222075944/http://www.dromo.info/diderotbio.htm Short biography]
* [http://www.c18th.com/author-works.aspx?id=219 Denis Diderot Bibliography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220130132834/http://www.c18th.com/author-works.aspx?id=219 |date=30 January 2022 }}
* [http://www.traduire.de/G+D_1.htm Le Neveu de Rameau – Diderot et Goethe]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20061026.shtml  The Encyclopédie], BBC Radio 4 discussion with Judith Hawley, Caroline Warman and David Wootton (''In Our Time'', 26 October 2006)

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