Diderot in the tradition of leibnizian philosophy

Lee Choong Hoon

doi:10.21049/ccs.2019.55..189

It is well known that philosophers of the 18th century were under the Leibnizian influence, of which fundamental thoughts are summed up as such: all phenomena in nature are related to each other. According to Leibniz, knowledge of nature is linked, and new discoveries fill missing links that remain insoluble and incomplete, until then. So, it is undeniable that the idea of the Encyclopédie led by Denis Diderot, is based on the optimistic epistemology of Leibniz. It should be noted that Diderot was leibnizian, not on mathematics and metaphysics, but on contemporary experimental sciences. The publisher of the Encyclopédie reproduces, in his bold system of materialistic atheism, leibnizian thoughts: beings are chained by degrees to each other, and no one is completely like another. Our study focuses on the recurring notions of Leibniz, in Diderot’s works concerning natural history and natural philosophy. Diderot continually criticizes the preformation and embedding of germs that have been widespread among philosophical and scientific scholars, since the last century. It should not be forgotten, however, that our author also criticizes contemporary naturalists, Buffon and Maupertuis, for having always used equivocal notions, and that he tries to positively welcome contemporary Leibnizian naturalists: Bourguet, Haller, Bonnet, and Robinet. What Diderot wanted to draw from the Leibnizians of his time, is the idea of a chain of beings in nature, including minerals. With this idea, he enterprisingly accepts the principle of organization, and development of organized bodies. He emphasizes the dynamic relationship between unity and variety, and he questions limits that artificially classify species and reigns in nature.

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