L’optimum comme paradigme savant dans l’Encyclopédie
The system of human knowledge, as Diderot and d’Alembert, the editors of the Encyclopédie, conceived it, is supposed to be one system among others. Such a conception is a product of a scholarly paradigm underlain by the idea of optimum. This paradigm leads particularly to think about the degree of p...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Institut du Monde Anglophone
2024-02-01
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| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/17383 |
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| Summary: | The system of human knowledge, as Diderot and d’Alembert, the editors of the Encyclopédie, conceived it, is supposed to be one system among others. Such a conception is a product of a scholarly paradigm underlain by the idea of optimum. This paradigm leads particularly to think about the degree of perfection that mankind is aiming for, as regards knowledge. To the specifically scientific dimension of the encyclopedic project is consequently added a moral and political dimension. Thus, the usefulness of the Encyclopédie will be considered according to its reception by the public: the rule of optimum requires the authors to write for the future, never for the present, or to relate all the knowledge to the reader’s point of view. As a result, the concept of optimum leads the editors to estimate the horizon of human knowledge, the horizon with respect to which the Encyclopédie should achieve its greatest efficiency. |
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| ISSN: | 1634-0450 |