Who were the Encyclopedists of the Enlightenment?

It was the year 1772, and in France the last of the volumes of the French Encyclopedia appeared., either Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. It was the most ambitious project of illustration in the Gallic country, and had behind famous thinkers and scientists such as Denis Diderot or Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

But despite being, without any doubt, the most important intellectual project of the Century of Enlightenment, the Encyclopedia did not appear out of nowhere, nor was it accepted by everyone in the same way. shape. Because, while the enlightened cheered it on as the great compilation of human knowledge, others denounced it as a true insult to the faith. In fact, after the suspension of rights by the French government, its authors had to continue their work in hiding.

Who were the men behind such an intellectual achievement? What was his trajectory? What direction did their lives take after the publication of the Encyclopedia? In today's article we are going to find out.

Encyclopedists and Enlightenment: when reason began to question everything

What was this extraordinary time that gave birth to a project of such magnitude? Let us remember that the original edition of the Encyclopedia consists of no less than 28 volumes, which include more than 70,000 articles, written by the great intellectuals of the moment, and more than 3,000 illustrations. A colossal monument to human reason.

Undoubtedly, the Encyclopedia is the daughter of the Enlightenment, the current of the eighteenth century that flooded Europe. At the bases of this intellectual movement was the desire to "dispel" the ignorance that had kept human beings in chains for centuries., through the exclusive use of reasoning. That is to say, within the enlightened movement there was no room for the "obscurantism" of previous times; the enlightened went against (some, in an absolutely radical way) religion, customs and everything they considered harmful to the "healthy" education of man.

And we say well, “of man”. Because, despite the fact that the Age of Enlightenment has a list of enlightened women, the status of women has changed practically nothing with the advent of the "empire of reason". Nor did its consequences, among them the French Revolution, give the female population other roles than those that had been traditionally assigned to them. In 1791, Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) denounced in his Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens that the change had only taken place for males.

Be that as it may, it is undeniable that the Enlightenment forever changed the foundations of Europe. Not only did it spur scientific progress (which, on the other hand, and especially in England, had already been taking place since the previous century, with figures as relevant as Isaac Newton), but also fostered the idea of ​​the division of powers and the right of the people to participate in the government, ideas that were profusely collected by authors as montesquieu either voltaire.

Origins and evolution of a project

At the beginning of the 18th century, England stood out on the European continent, not only because of its incipient Industrial Revolution, but also because of its progress in the field of science and politics. The “Glorious” Revolution of the seventeenth century had limited the power of the king; the English monarchy would never again circumscribe itself within the guidelines of absolutism, thus marking the path of the rest of Europe.

In this context of incipient liberalism, John Locke (1632-1704) published in 1690 Two Government Treaties, in which he laid the foundations of popular sovereignty by stating that the government was a pact between the leaders and the people. A little later, in 1728, he saw the light, also in England, of the famous Cyclopaedia or the Universal Dictionary of Sciences and the Artsby Ephraim Chambers. It was an extensive compilation of human knowledge that was the direct inspiration for the subsequent Encyclopedia of the French Enlightenment.

In fact, at first, the Encyclopedia project was a simple translation. In 1747, the publisher André Le Bréton (1708-1779) commissioned Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert to translate the cyclopaedia into French, as the public was deeply interested in this type of publication. However, as time passed, the two authors (who had become the project managers) decided to broaden their knowledge of the English edition through new writings.

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an uncomfortable work

It is almost impossible to review the complete list of all those who participated in the Encyclopedia French. Some articles were published anonymously, as if the authors wished to remain hidden. And, in reality, it was not for less. The strictly secular nature of the work, which classified religion as a mere branch of philosophy (in contrast to what the Scholastics had promoted since the Middle Ages) ran into the fury of the most conservative and, of course, of the Church.

These conflicts precipitated d'Alembert's resignation from the project in 1758. A year later, the Encyclopedia becomes part of the list of books prohibited by the Church and loses the government license, forcing its authors to continue publishing it clandestinely. At that time, seven volumes had already seen the light.

The project was able to stay alive, in part, due to the support it received from people very close to the king; among them, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (1721-1764) the royal favourite, better known as Madame de Pompadour. This woman was one of the most distinguished enlightened at court and promoted numerous artistic and intellectual projects, including the work of Diderot and d'Alembert. On the other hand, the famous politician Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes also sided with the encyclopedists. The French government pretended that it knew nothing of the matter and let the project go ahead without official permission.

Who were the encyclopedists of the Enlightenment?

After laying the foundations of the social context and the history of the project, we can move on to talk about the protagonists of this great intellectual event. We have already commented that at the head of the Encyclopedia were Diderot and d' Alembert (the latter, until his resignation in 1758), and that each of the volumes are made up of numerous articles from all disciplines, written by great scholars in science, art, philosophy, mechanics…

The list of authors of the Encyclopedia whose authorship we know is very long. Among them are Louis de Jaucourt (1704-1779), physician and philosopher and one of those who wrote the most articles; the doctor Paul Jospeh Barthez (1734-1806), who wrote articles on medicine, or the linguist Charles de Brosses (1709-1777), who was in charge of some texts on etymology, music and literature.

However, in this section we will briefly dwell on the 5 most remembered encyclopedists in history: Denis Diderot, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire.

Dennis Diderot (1713-1784)

In addition to directing the work on the Encyclopedia with d'Alembert, Diderot wrote articles on various subjects, including politics and economics. A restless intellectual, he was the son of a Langres cutler who wanted his offspring to dedicate himself to the Church. However, that was not the destination that Diderot dreamed of. In 1742, at the age of twenty-nine, he asked his father's permission to marry Anne-Antoinette Champion.

The young woman's lack of dowry caused the final conflict, and Monsieur Diderot senior locked up his son in a monastery to meditate on the matter. However, the young man soon escaped from his prison and eventually married Antoinette. The marriage was not happy and Diderot had other relationships, including the one that was without he doubts his great love, Sophie Vollard, with whom he had an intense correspondence that still continues. preserves.

In the intellectual field, Diderot is one of the greatest French Enlightenment. In addition to his critical and essay work, we also find novels such as the nun, published in 1780 and which deals with a girl who is forced to profess as a nun against her will. Undoubtedly, the philosopher reflected part of his personal experiences in the work.

Diderot was a radical atheist who, like his companions Holbach and Helvecio, was part of the materialist current. In his philosophy, then, there is no place for the concept of God. His work Letter on the blind for the use of those who see, published in 1749, in which he stated the existence of a single matter in continuous change, earned him a brief arrest in Vincennes, on charges of heresy. This shows, once again, that not everyone viewed some of the precepts of the Enlightenment with good eyes.

Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783)

Diderot's companion in his encyclopedic journey, d'Alembert, had been born a bastard child, and was later abandoned at the door of the church. The name of the temple, precisely, was the one that gave it its name: Saint-Jean-Le-Rond. Despite his abandonment, his biological father took over the expenses of his education, and d'Alembert was able to dispose of considerable scholarship.

Very interested in fields such as philosophy and mathematics, he wrote several works on the exact sciences, which earned him fame throughout Europe.. Before his resignation from the encyclopedic project in 1758, disagreements with his colleague Diderot were already quite frequent, due to their different positions on some issues. However, d'Alembert's work permeates the entire work: he authored many articles on mathematics and astronomy, and also made the famous preliminary speech of the first volume.

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Of noble origin and known to history simply because of his lordship, Montesquieu is one of the oldest encyclopedists along with Voltaire. He is especially known for his theory of the separation of powers, the basis of what would later become national sovereignty and which would be of paramount importance during the French Revolution.

In Law spirit, published in 1748, Montesquieu captures his absolute fascination for the English political regime that, let us remember, had inaugurated a parliamentary monarchy during the previous century. The work was harshly criticized by the most conservative sectors, and introduced into the Index of works Banned from the Church in 1750.

But probably the work for which he is most famous is Persian letters (1722), which is based on fictional epistles between a Persian visiting Paris and his friend Rica, who has remained in his hometown. Following a habitual method in the 18th century, which was also used by the Spanish José Cadalso in his Letters Morocco, Montesquieu puts into the mouth of the Persian his own impressions and criticisms of the French society of the epoch. Of course, this complaint earned him, once again, the inclusion in the famous list of prohibited books.

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Perhaps one of the main differences between Rousseau and many of his fellow encyclopedists was that he never considered himself an atheist, but rather a deist. He has gone down in history for his unconditional faith in the natural goodness of the human being, which is later corrupted by civilization. In this sense, and due to his exaltation of nature as the natural state of humanity, Rousseau has been considered one of the root-thinkers of pre-romanticism.

Born in Geneva, Switzerland, to a Calvinist father who was persecuted by the law, Rousseau began a period of wandering in adolescence that would have ended badly if not for the protection of Madame de Warens, whom he regarded as the mother he had lost (she died when the philosopher was very young). little). This maternal-filial relationship was not an impediment so that, years later, Madame de Warens and Rousseau became lovers.

Rousseau's “peaceful” philosophy does not fit his busy life. After abandoning Madame, he becomes romantically involved with Marie-Thèrese Le Vasseur, an illiterate young woman with whom he never married, but with whom he had five children, whom Rousseau handed over to the hospice. In the meantime, he published his famous work the social contract (1762), one of the reasons why his name was so appreciated during the Revolution, and Emilio, in which he addresses the issue of education.

François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694-1778)

Voltaire was no more than a pseudonym, although it is unknown what motivated him. In any case, François-Marie Arouet was one of the great French enlightened men and one of the most important authors of the Encyclopedia.

Like Rousseau, he was in favor of a "natural religion", deism, which promoted a faith based on a creator God who, after his work, distanced himself from the world and did not participate in it. Therefore, deists such as Voltaire and Rousseau were openly against ecclesiastical dogmas and were supporters of freedom of expression.

In his English Letters (1734), published after his stay in England, Voltaire, inspired by the political regime of the neighboring country, expressed his adherence to religious tolerance and freedom of thought, which would later have a capital importance in the origin of the regimes liberals.