Diderot, Denis (1713-1784)

A contemporary portrait of the 18th-century French encyclopedist Denis Diderot. That his description of the origin and development of life on earth was based solely on facts known at the time was a blow for the reactionary Church authorities. He was regarded by them as a dangerous radical, a contributor to the forces of revolution, which triumphed not long after his death.

French philosopher. He is closely associated with the Enlightenment, the European intellectual movement for social and scientific progress, and was editor of the enormously influential Encyclopédie (1751-80).

An expanded and politicized version of the English encyclopedia (1728) of Ephraim Chambers (c. 1680-1740), this work exerted an enormous influence on contemporary social thinking with its materialism and anticlericalism. Its compilers were known as Encyclopédistes.

Diderot's materialism, most articulately expressed in D'Alembert's Dream, published after Diderot's death, sees the natural world as nothing more than matter and motion.

His account of the origin and development of life is purely mechanical.