The Encyclopédie: A Monument to Reason

Extract

[...] The publication The Encyclopédie encountered obstacles such as censorship, the suppression of the royal privilege, disagreements among the philosophers or a lack of funding. Its popularity from the beginning of its publication ultimately worked in its favor. However, although it is a tool to combat ignorance, obscurantism, and fanaticism that maintain subjugation and superstition, defending critical thinking and progress, the skeptical nature of the articles demonstrates the limitations of these and reminds that doubt must be permanent. Reputed for its subversive character denounced by its detractors and although it carries the seeds of a global political and philosophical project, The Encyclopédie However, it is not a prelude to the revolution but tends towards the promotion of reforms, faithful to the spirit of its authors and contributors. [...]

[...] L'Encyclopédie is associated with two prominent names that contributed to its implementation: the mathematician d'Alembert and the philosopher Diderot. Originally derived from a translation of Cyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers and succeeding a line of universal dictionaries from the late 17th century, the objective of The Encyclopédie is unprecedented: to put forward the discoveries, and the scientific progress of the time with reason placed at the center of knowledge to explain phenomena, through human and natural experience and observation, challenging the place that God had until then occupied within knowledge. [...]