Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
Author of Jacques the Fatalist
About the Author
Denis Diderot was a French philosopher and critic during the Age of Enlightenment. Born in 1713 in Langres, France, Diderot was educated at the University of Paris. From 1745 to 1772 he served as editor of L'Encyclopedie, which he fashioned as a journal of radical revolutionary opinion. He was a show more leader in the movement to challenge both church and state by furthering knowledge. Diderot also wrote several critical and philosophical works including Pensees sur l'interpretation de la nature (Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature, 1754). In addition, he published essays based on personal experience, as well as several plays. As a philosopher, Diderot speculated on free will and held a completely materialistic view of the universe; he suggested all human behavior is determined by heredity. He is recognized now as an art critic of the first rank. His Essai sur la peinture (Essay on Painting, 1796) won him posthumous praise as a critic of painting technique and aesthetics. He died in Paris in 1784 and was buried in the city's Église Saint-Roch. His heirs sent his vast library to Catherine II, who had it deposited at the National Library of Russia. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: From Wikimedia Commons
Series
Works by Denis Diderot
Supplément au voyage de Bougainville : "Pensées philosophiques", "Lettre sur les aveugles" (1972) 42 copies
L'Encyclopédie : [recueil de planches, sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques, avec leur… (1989) — Author — 33 copies
Diderot on Art, Volume I: The Salon of 1765 and Notes on Painting (Salon of 1765 & Notes on Painting) (1995) 32 copies
Entretien entre D'Alembert et Diderot / Le rêve de d'Alembert / Suite de l'entretien (1965) 31 copies
L'uccello bianco 14 copies
Pensées philosophiques ; Lettre sur les aveugles ; Entretien entre d'Alembert et Diderot ;… (2008) 9 copies
Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works (Enlightenment source texts) (2000) 8 copies
Pensamientos filosóficos investigaciones filosóficas sobre el origen y la naturaleza de lo bello (1984) 8 copies, 1 review
L' Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire Raisonne Des Sciences Des Arts et des metiers (5 volume Readex Compact Edition) (1969) 8 copies
Oeuvres choisies 8 copies
Selected writings 8 copies
SERRURIER - FERRONNIER Recueil de Planches, sur les sciences, les arts libéraux et les arts méchaniques… (2002) 7 copies
Paradoxe sur le comédien, suivi de lettres sur le théâtre à Madame Riccoboni et à Mademoiselle Jodin (1994) 7 copies
Encyclopédie, ... Recueil de planches, sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques, avec leur… (1988) — Editor; Editor — 6 copies
Enciclopédia. Discurso Preliminar e Outros Textos - Volume 1 (Em Portuguese do Brasil) (2015) 6 copies
ENCICLOPaDIA - VOLUME 5 5 copies
Oeuvres 5 copies
Enciclopédia, ou Dicionário Razoado das Ciências, das Artes e dos Ofícios - Volume 6 (2017) 5 copies
ENCICLOPaDIA - VOLUME 3 5 copies
La filosofia dell' Encyclopédie 5 copies
Jacques le Fataliste et son maître 4 copies
Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen / Bd. 1: Die indiskreten Kleinode. Die Nonne (1748) — Author — 4 copies
L'ART DU TOURNEUR. L'Encyclopédie: recueil de planches sur les sciences, les arts libéraux et… (1996) 4 copies
Two Plays by Denis Diderot: The Illegitimate Son and The Father of the Family Translated with an Introduction by Kiki… (2011) 4 copies
Esto no es un cuento. Los dos amigos de Bourbonne. La se�ora de La Carli�re. Autores y cr�ticos (1974) 4 copies
Oeuvres, Esthétique - Théâtre 3 copies
Tratado de la barbarie de los pueblos civilizados (Historia (pasado)) (Spanish Edition) (2014) 3 copies
Suplemento al viaje de Bougainville: o Diálogo entre A y B acerca del inconveniente de añadir ideas… (2013) 3 copies
The Collected Works of Denis Diderot 3 copies
Moralische Erzählungen 2 copies
El autor y su obra. 2 copies
DIDEROT: Supplement Au Voyage De Bougainville, Pensées Philosophiques, Lettre Sur Les Aveugles (1972) 2 copies
Vida de Séneca 2 copies
The paradox of the actor: Reflexions sur le paradoxe (Humanities Collections) (Volume 21) (2015) 2 copies
La paradoja del comandante 2 copies
Sur l'Art et les Artistes 2 copies
Correspondance 2 copies
Salons De 1759 1761 1763 2 copies
Textes choisis, Tome deuxième: De l'interprétation de la nature, Article de l'Encyclopédie (1992) 2 copies
Synonymes Français 2 copies
Udødelige tanker, Diderot 2 copies
Selections From the Encyclopedia By Diderot, D/alembert and a Society of Men of Letters (1965) 2 copies
Éloge de Richardson 2 copies
Le Père de famille. Comédie en 5 actes et en prose, par monsieur Diderot — Author — 2 copies
Ironie morali 1 copy
Essai sur la peinture 1 copy
Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres.… — Editor — 1 copy
Ramo Ka Bhatija 1 copy
L'oiseau blanc : Conte bleu 1 copy
Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre ou Avis à ceux qui ont plus de goût que de fortune : Suivi de la… (2011) 1 copy
La Religieuse 1 copy
Principes De La Philosophie Morale: Ou Essai De M. S. Sur Le Merite Et La Vertu (1745) (2010) 1 copy
JACQUES LE FATALISTE , 4 COFFRETS, 7 CASSETTES, (PREMIERE EPOQUE COMPOSEE DE 4 TOMES, DEUXIEME EPOQUE COMPOSEE DE 3… (1990) 1 copy
Teatro 1 copy
Oeuvres romanesque 1 copy
Lettre historique et politique adressée à un magistrat sur le commerce de la librairie (2013) 1 copy
Mníka 1 copy
Arte y enciclopedia : traducciones fiables de la expresión de las bellas artes en la Enciclopedia de Diderot y… (1994) 1 copy
RAMEAU'NUN YEĞENİ 1 copy
SOPHIE VOLLAND'A MEKTUPLAR 1 copy
La Monarca 1 copy
Diderot Obras VIII 1 copy
OBRAS FILOSÓFICAS 1 copy
O divadle 1 copy
Dos autores e dos críticos 1 copy
Miscelanea Philosophiques 1 copy
Jacque Le Fataliste 1 copy
Opere filosofiche 1 copy
Oeuvres De Théatre De M. Diderot : Avec Un Discours Sur La Poesie Dramatique Tome Premier [...] 1 copy
Os Pensadores. Diderot 1 copy
Oeuvres De Théatre De M. Diderot : Avec Un Discours Sur La Poesie Dramatique Tome Second [...] 1 copy
D. Diderot Oeuvres complètes 1 copy
A filosofia de Diderot 1 copy
Euvres esthetiques 1 copy
Spreuken 1 copy
Tous les chefs d'oeuvre de la litterature Francaise. Les chefs-d'oeuvre de Diderot. Tome Deuxieme. 1 copy
La politica 1 copy
Pages choisies 1 copy
Kubuś Fatalista 1 copy
Mémoires pour Catherine II 1 copy
Romans 1 copy
Paradosso sull'attore,uno dei testi piu'celebri e brillanti dell'estetica illuminista. 1996 (1900) 1 copy
Pensées détachées sur la Peinture, la Sculpture, l'Architecture et la poésie pour servir de suite aux Salons (2015) 1 copy
O religiji 1 copy
Beaux-Arts, première partie - Art du dessin : L'Histoire et le secret de la peinture en cire (2015) 1 copy
O svojstvima 1 copy
Le neveu de Romeau 1 copy
To ni zgodba in druge zgodbe 1 copy
�uvres politiques 1 copy
Redovnica 1 copy
Lettres a Sophie Volland, II 1 copy
Lettres a Sophie Volland, I 1 copy
O umetnosti 1 copy
O poreklu i prirodi lepoga 1 copy
Réflexions sur une difficulté proposée contre la manière dont les Newtoniens expliquent la cohésion (2015) 1 copy
Sur Deux Mémoires de d'Alembert : L'un concernant le Calcul des Probabilités, l'autre l'Inoculation (2015) 1 copy
La Paradoxa del comediant 1 copy
Diderot [Opere di] 1 copy
Progetto di una università per il governo di Russia, 1775-1776, ovvero Di una educazione pubblica in tutte le scienze (2004) 1 copy
Œuvres politiques. [Textes établis avec introductions, bibliographies, notes et relevé de variantes 1 copy
La Enciclopedia 1 copy
The Paradox of the actor (annotated): Le paradoxe sur le comédien (Humanities Collections Book 21) (2014) 1 copy
Correspondance Litteraire, Philosophique Et Critique, Adressee a Un Souverain D'Allemagne, Depuis 1753 Jusqu'en 1769,… (2017) 1 copy
Oeuvres Completes de Diderot, Revues Sur Les Editions Originales, Vol. 8: Comprenant Ce Qui a Ete Publie a Diverses… (2017) 1 copy
Oeuvres Completes de Diderot, Vol. 5: Revues Sur Les Editions Originales, Comprenant Ce Qui a Ete Publie a Diverses… (2017) 1 copy
Oeuvres Philosophiques de Denis Diderot, Vol. 2: Apologie de L'Abbe de Prades, Pensees Sur L'Interpretation de la… (2017) 1 copy
Œuvres Complètes de Diderot, Vol. 20: Revue sur les Éditions Originales, Comprenant ce Qui A Été Publié A… (2017) 1 copy
Sur l'art et les artistes 1 copy
Filozofické dialógy a state 1 copy
From Their Lips to His Ear : Tasteful Extract from Les Bijoux Indiscrets (Pocket Erotica) (2020) 1 copy
Diderot et le théâtre: Paradoxe sur le comédien: et Lettres à mademoiselle Jodin: suivis de Rémond de… (1995) 1 copy
Pensamiento filosóficos 1 copy
Briefe an Sophie Voland 1 copy
De droom van d'Alembert en andere wijsgerige geschriften: en andere wijsgerige geschriften (2021) 1 copy
Sogno di D'Alembert 1 copy
Lettere a Sofia 1 copy
Religiosa, A 1 copy
ENCYCLOPÉDIE: ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (26) (Molière & Co.) (French Edition) (2020) 1 copy
Œuvres choisies 1 copy
Calugarita 1 copy
Pensées détachées ou Fragments politiques échappés du portefeuille d'un philosophe (HR.SAVOIR LETTR) (French… (2011) 1 copy
Oeuvres Choisies II 1 copy
Oeuvres Choisies I 1 copy
Encyclopédie méthodique 1 copy
Házasság és hűség 1 copy
Das erzählerische Werk (I-IV). Die geschätzigen Kleinode, Die Nonne, Jacques der Fatalist und sein Herr,… (1984) 1 copy
L'antro di Platone 1 copy
Donna Alba 1 copy
As joias indiscretas 1 copy
Ὁ ��νεψιός τοῦ Ραμώ 1 copy
Le Religieuse 1 copy
Associated Works
The Libertine Reader: Eroticism and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century France (1997) — Contributor — 69 copies
Neoclassicism and Romanticism, 1750-1850, Vol. 1: Enlightenment/Revolution (1970) — Contributor — 23 copies
Oogst der tijden : keur uit de werken van schrijvers en dichters aller volken en eeuwen (1940) — Contributor — 10 copies
The Nun [1966 film] — Original book — 7 copies
Les Plans et les statuts des différents établissements ordonnés par Sa Majesté impériale Catherine II. pour… — Editor, some editions — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Diderot, Denis
- Legal name
- Diderot, Denis
- Birthdate
- 1713-10-15
- Date of death
- 1784-07-31
- Burial location
- Saint-Roch, Paris, France
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- France
- Birthplace
- Langres, France
- Place of death
- Paris, France
- Education
- University of Paris (MA)
College d'Harcourt
Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris, France - Occupations
- philosopher
polymath - Relationships
- d'Epinay, Madame (friend)
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (friend)
d'Alembert, Jean le Rond (co-author)
Catherine the Great (patron)
Grimm, Friedrich-Melchior (friend)
Vandeul, Marie Angélique de (daughter) - Short biography
- Denis Diderot was a prominent philosopher, art critic, polymath, and writer of the French Enlightenment, best known today as co-founder and chief editor of the Encyclopédie. Diderot was educated by the Jesuits in Langres and earned a master of arts degree in philosophy in Paris. He considered entering the clergy and studying law. However, by 1734 Diderot had decided to become a writer. Because of his refusal to enter one of the learned professions, he was disowned by his father, and for the next 10 years he lived a Bohemian existence, in near-poverty, dodging the censors. He befriended Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Madame d'Epinay, and other writers and thinkers (philosophes). In 1743, he married Antoinette Champion, daughter of a linen draper, a match his father considered inappropriate; the couple had one surviving child. Diderot had affairs with the writer Madeleine de Puisieux and Sophie Volland; his letters to them contain some of the most vivid insights that historians have into his personality and the daily life of the French philosophes of the period. Diderot was elected to the Académie française, but still had financial troubles, especially when it came time for his daughter Marie-Angelique to marry, and was about to sell his library. Jacob Grimm appealed on his behalf in 1765 to Catherine the Great of Russia, who commissioned an agent in Paris to buy the library; she then requested that Diderot retain the books and act as her librarian with an annual salary that she paid in advance. In 1773, Diderot went to visit the Empress in Saint Petersburg to thank her, and spent some months at court. After his death, his library was deposited at the National Library of Russia. Diderot's last words were said to be, "Le premier pas vers la philosophie, c'est l'incrédulité" ("The first step toward philosophy is incredulity").
Members
Discussions
Diderot - Dialogues & Minor Works in Literary Centennials (October 2013)
Diderot - The Indiscreet Jewels in Literary Centennials (October 2013)
Diderot - The Nun in Literary Centennials (March 2013)
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Statistics
- Works
- 578
- Also by
- 20
- Members
- 8,339
- Popularity
- #2,894
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 98
- ISBNs
- 899
- Languages
- 26
- Favorited
- 20
This book, Jacques the Fatalist (1785), actually also is a philosophical story in dialogue form. But Diderot wrote it in a much lighter style, with a clear ironic-picaresque slant, and that makes it much more digestible. The dialogue takes place between the servant Jacques and his unnamed boss (the master). Jacques is an inveterate chatterbox who loves to talk about his time in the army and his amorous adventures. His boss is particularly interested in the latter, but he remains dissatisfied because Jacques jumps from topic to topic, is interrupted by the master and other people. The broken storyline leads to irritation and frustration with the master, but also with the reader. And that is apparently deliberately intended by Diderot, who regularly interrupts the novel to address the reader directly and to comment on the events himself, which of course only makes matters worse. In this Diderot was inspired by Tristam Shandy, the voluminous novel by the English writer Laurence Sterne, the first parts of which had been published a few years earlier. And that of course explains a few things. Because if there is one novel that tests the patience of the reader, with constant interruptions and digressions, it is this one. But Diderot was also clearly inspired by the ironic and picaresque nature of Sterne's novel. Jacques Le Fataliste also excels in his laconic, satirical and often simply absurd nature. And the entertaining stories within the story (such as the delightful one about the Marquis des Arcis and the Marquise de Pommeraye) certainly compensate for the reading difficulties.
Okay, fine, but what about the philosophy? That is certainly there, even on almost every page. Because chatterbox Jacques turns out to be a fatalist, who attributes everything he experiences to Providence, "everything good and bad that happens to us here below was written up there”. In the dialogue with the master, that providence is constantly being sounded out, and with it inevitably the question of man's free will, one of the most fundamental philosophical issues. Every adventure, every prank, every bit of luck or misfortune is weighed up and discussed in this light, by each of the three main characters (Jacques, the master ànd the writer). Not with weighty philosophical arguments, no, on the contrary, light-heartedly and with a wink, and therefore also constantly undermining (false) certainties: “It is because, for lack of knowing what is written up there, we know neither what we want nor what we do, and we follow our fantasy which we call reason, or our reason which often just is a dangerous fantasy that sometimes turns out well, sometimes badly.” (what a great quote”!). I enjoyed this delicious, mischievous novel immensely. For me, this is the best thing Diderot ever put to paper.… (more)