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Encyclopédistes
The Encyclopédistes () (also known in British English as Encyclopaedists, or in U.S. English as Encyclopedists) were members of the , a French writers' society, who contributed to the development of the ''Encyclopédie'' from June 1751 to December 1765 under the editors Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. History The composition of the 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of plates of the ''Encyclopédie'' was the work of over 150 authors belonging, in large part, to the intellectual group known as the philosophes. They promoted the advancement of science and secular thought and supported tolerance, rationality, and open-mindedness of the Enlightenment. More than a hundred encyclopédistes have been identified. They were not a unified group, neither in ideology nor social class.Frank A. Kafker, ''The Encyclopedists as a Group: A Collective Biography of the Authors of the Encyclopédie'' (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1996). Below some of the contributors are listed in alpha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Encyclopédie
''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes. It was edited by Denis Diderot and, until 1759, co-edited by Jean le Rond d'Alembert. The ''Encyclopédie'' is most famous for representing the thought of the Enlightenment. According to Denis Diderot in the article "Encyclopédie", the ''Encyclopédies aim was "to change the way people think" and for people (bourgeoisie) to be able to inform themselves and to know things. He and the other contributors advocated for the secularization of learning away from the Jesuits. Diderot wanted to incorporate all of the world's knowledge into the ''Encyclopédie'' and hoped that the text could dissemina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques-Nicolas Bellin
Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703 – 21 March 1772) was a French hydrographer, geographer, and member of the French intellectual group called the philosophes. Bellin was born in Paris. He was hydrographer of France's hydrographic office, member of the ''Académie de Marine'' and of the Royal Society of London. Over a 50-year career, he produced many maps of particular interest to the ''Ministère de la Marine''. His maps of Canada and of French territories in North America (New France, Acadia, Louisiana) are particularly valuable. He died at Versailles. First ''Ingenieur de la Marine'' In 1721, at age 18, he was appointed hydrographer (chief cartographer) to the French Navy. In August 1741, he became the first ''Ingénieur de la Marine of the Dépot des cartes et plans de la Marine'' (the French Hydrographical Office) and was named Official Hydrographer of the French King. Prodigious work, high standard of excellence During his reign the Depot published a prodigious number of cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during the Age of Enlightenment. Diderot initially studied philosophy at a 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 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''. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmé-François Mallet
Edmé-François Mallet, also abbé Mallet, (29 January 1713, Melun – 25 February 1755, Châteaurenard) was an 18th-century French theologian and Encyclopédistes, encyclopédiste. Biography Edmé-François Mallet first received his education by the country priest of his birthplace and later studied at the college of the Barnabites in Montargis, before he went to Paris. There, he was tutor of Ange Laurent Lalive de Jully (1725-1779), a future as well as honorary member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.Holzhey, Helmut; Mudroch, Vilem; Ueberweg, Friedrich; Rohbeck, Johannes: ''Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts.'' 2 Halbbde. Schwabe-Verlag, Basel (2008) , (p. 289–290) He entered into license in 1742 at the Faculty of Theology of Paris and was an Associate in the House and Royal Society of Navarre. It was customary at the end of licenses, that the two first places went to the priors of Sorbonne, the following tw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baron D'Holbach
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (; 8 December 1723 – 21 January 1789), was a French-German philosopher, encyclopedist, writer, and prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a ''salon''. He helped in the dissemination of "Protestant and especially German thought", particularly in the field of the sciences, but was best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being ''The System of Nature'' (1770) and '' The Universal Morality'' (1776). Biography Sources differ regarding d'Holbach's dates of birth and death. His exact birthday is unknown, although records show that he was baptised on 8 December 1723. Some authorities incorrectly give June 1789 as the month of his death. D'Holbach's mother, Catherine Jacobina (''née'' Holbach; 1684–1743), was the daughter of Johannes Jacob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Étienne Noël Damilaville
Étienne Noël Damilaville (21 November 1723 – 13 December 1768) was an 18th-century French man of letters, friend of Voltaire, Diderot and d'Alembert. He served in various military and administrative functions of the Ancien Régime. He was a member of the bodyguard of King Louis XV, and then a senior civil servant in the tax office responsible for supervising the ''Vingtième''. His official roles meant that his correspondence was unexamined by censors, enabling him to circulate letters between leading thinkers of the day, most particularly during the Sirven affair. The Encyclopédie Damilaville authored three articles in the Encyclopédie - ''Population'', ''Peace'' and ''The Vingtième''. Vingtieme Damilaville is believed to have coauthored an article in the Encyclopédie on the ''Vingtieme'' tax regime with Diderot, his trusted associate. His treatise is largely a discussion on the nature of government, of civil society and of the economy. Like Montesquie, Damilaville ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-François-Henri Collot
Jean-François-Henri Collot (Pont-d’Arches, near Charleville-Mézières 26 January 1716 – October 1804 in Mesnil, near Châlons-sur-Marne) was an 18th-century French homme de lettres and encyclopédiste. Collot devoted to the cultivation of letters the leisure that allowed him the occupation of commissary of war, a position that he filled successively in Grenoble, Rennes and Nancy. André-Joseph Collot was his brother. Publications * ''Mémoire sur les invalides'', in ''Encyclopédie'' by Diderot, entry « invalides ». Collot proposes to distribute in rural communities invalids yet ready to marry and make their marriage a duty in order to repopulate the countryside. * ''Mémoire sur la vie parmi les troupes, écrit de façon à être lu dans un couvent de religieuses'', 1769, in-8°. * ''Satires en vers sur les innovations dans le ministère'', Bâle, 1774, in-8°. * ''L’Officier français à l’armée'', opéra comique mixed with ariettes, Grenoble, 1780, in-8°. * '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-François Marmontel
Jean-François Marmontel (11 July 1723 – 31 December 1799) was a French historian, writer and a member of the Encyclopédistes movement. Biography He was born of poor parents at Bort, Limousin (today in Corrèze). After studying with the Jesuits at Mauriac, Cantal, he taught in their colleges at Clermont-Ferrand and Toulouse; and in 1745, acting on the advice of Voltaire, he set out for Paris to try for literary success. From 1748 to 1753 he wrote a succession of tragedies: ''Denys le Tyran'' (1748); ''Aristomene'' (1749); ''Cleopâtre'' (1750); ''Heraclides'' (1752); ''Egyptus'' (1753). These literary works, though only moderately successful on the stage, secured Marmontel's introduction into literary and fashionable circles. He wrote a series of articles for the ''Encyclopédie'' evincing considerable critical power and insight, which in their collected form, under the title ''Eléments de Littérature'', still rank among the French classics. He also wrote several c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
André Le Breton
André François le Breton (2 September 1708 – 5 October 1779) was a French publisher. He was one of the four publishers of the ''Encyclopédie'' of Denis Diderot, Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, d'Alembert, along with Michel-Antoine David, Laurent Durand, and Antoine-Claude Briasson. Le Breton contributed some articles to the ''Encyclopédie'' (see #External links, External links, below), but acted primarily as publisher and editor, often against Diderot's will. In 1745, le Breton set out to publish a translation of Ephraim Chambers' ''Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, Cyclopaedia'' of 1728. He initially chose Jean Paul de Gua de Malves as his editor, but he tired of the job after two years, and in 1747, the editorship went to Diderot. For a more detailed account, see ''Encyclopédie''. With the assistance of his foreman Louis-Claude Brullé, le Breton would occasionally Censorship, censor articles in order to make them less radical, frequentl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton
Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton (29 May 1716 – 1 January 1800) was a French naturalist and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers''. Biography Daubenton was born at Montbard, Côte-d'Or. His father, Jean Daubenton, a notary, intended him for the church, and sent him to Paris to study theology, but Louis-Jean-Marie was more interested in medicine. Jean's death in 1736 set his son free to choose his own career, and in 1741 he graduated in medicine at Reims and returned to his hometown, planning to practice as a physician. At about this time, Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, also a native of Montbard, was preparing to bring out a multi-volume work on natural history, the ''Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière'', and in 1742 he invited Daubenton to assist him by providing anatomical descriptions. In many respects, the two men were complete opposites, but they worked well in partnership. In 1744, Daubenton becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul-Jacques Malouin
Paul Jacques Malouin (27 June 1701 – 3 January 1778) was a French physician and chemist. Career Born in Caen, Malouin graduated in medicine in 1730 against the wishes of his father (a legal official from Caen) who had sent him to Paris to study law. He settled in Paris in 1734 and opened a medical practice which attracted patients from the aristocracy and royal family. With the help of Fontenelle, a distant relation, he entered the French Academy of Sciences in 1742 where his particular research interest was the application of chemistry to medicine. In 1745 he was appointed professor of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi. For nine consecutive years he studied the epidemics raging in Paris and recorded the results of his research in his ''Mémoires'' published by the Academy of Sciences between 1746 and 1754, linking epidemic diseases to air temperature. In 1753 Malouin began a formal association with the royal court when he bought from Lassone the position of ''médecin de la re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Le Rond D'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''Encyclopédie''. D'Alembert's formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him. The wave equation is sometimes referred to as d'Alembert's equation, and the fundamental theorem of algebra is named after d'Alembert in French. Early years Born in Paris, d'Alembert was the natural son of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches, an artillery officer. Destouches was abroad at the time of d'Alembert's birth. Days after birth his mother left him on the steps of the church. According to custom, he was named after the patron saint of the church. D'Alembert was placed in an orphanage for foundling children, but his father found him and placed him with the wife of a glazier, Madame Rousseau, with who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
