Diderot's biography briefly. Diderot Denis: biography, philosophy

Denis Diderot was an intellectual of his time, a French writer and philosopher. The Encyclopedia he compiled, which he completed in 1751, brought him the greatest fame. Along with Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau, he was considered one of the ideologists of the third estate in France, a popularizer of the ideas of the Enlightenment, which are believed to have paved the way for the Great French Revolution of 1789.

Childhood and youth

Denis Diderot was born in 1713. He was born in the small French town of Langres. His mother was the daughter of a tanner, and his father made knives.

Parents decided that Denis Diderot would become a priest. To do this, they sent him to a Jesuit college, from which he graduated in 1728. Two years earlier, the boy officially became an abbot. Biographers note that during this period the hero of our article was an extremely religious person, constantly fasted and even wore a hair shirt.

Arriving in Paris to complete his education, he entered the Jesuit College of Louis the Great, and a little later, in all likelihood, the Jansenite educational institution - d'Harcourt. Here he received the profession of a lawyer, since his father encouraged him to pursue a legal career. Presumably, just the conflicts that arose between the Jansenites and the Jesuits turned him away from his chosen path.

In 1732, Denis Diderot received a master's degree from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Paris. Instead of a career as a priest, he seriously thinks about becoming a lawyer, but as a result he prefers the lifestyle of a free artist.

Refusal of a priestly career

In a short biography of Denis Diderot, you need to pay attention to his personal life. In 1743, he married Anne Toinette Champion, who owned a linen shop.

At the same time, it is reliably known that marriage did not prevent him from having affairs with other women. He is believed to have been romantically involved in the mid-1750s with Sophie Volland, for whom he remained attached almost until his death.

After the wedding, Denis Diderot, whose biography is quite interesting and full of all sorts of ideas, initially made money through translations. In the 40s he worked with the most famous works of Stenian, Shaftesbury, and James. His first independent literary works date back to the same period. They testify to the courage and mature mind of a fairly young author. In 1746, his “Philosophical Thoughts” were published, and later - “Alleys, or the Walk of a Skeptic”, “Letter on the Blind for the Edification of the Sighted”, “Indiscreet Treasures”. Apparently, by this time Diderot had already turned into a deist, and soon into a convinced materialist and atheist. At that time, these books by Denis Diderot were classified as freethinking, for which he was arrested in 1749. He served his imprisonment at Vincennes Castle.

Work on the "Encyclopedia"

Diderot first encountered work on the Encyclopedia in 1747. The idea of ​​the capital's publisher Breton to translate the so-called “General Dictionary of Crafts and Sciences” into French appeared several years ago. But no editor could cope with this task.

Diderot worked on the project together with D'Alembert. As a result, one of them came up with the idea of ​​completely abandoning the translation of the English dictionary, and preparing an independent publication that would be unique. In any case, it was thanks to Diderot that the work on the Encyclopedia acquired the scope that turned it into a real manifesto of the Enlightenment.

Over the next quarter of a century, the hero of our article continues to supervise the work on the book of knowledge, which by that time has grown to 17 volumes of articles alone, which are accompanied by another eleven volumes of illustrations. Even considering the biography of Denis Diderot briefly, you need to dwell on the large number of obstacles that he managed to overcome on his way. In addition to the already mentioned imprisonment, this is also the suspension of work for reasons beyond the control of the editor, the crisis due to which D "Alembert left the project, the ban on the publication and its careful and scrupulous censorship.

It was not until 1772 that the first edition of the Encyclopedia was finally completed. Almost all the great minds of the Enlightenment who were in France at that time took part in its creation - Voltaire, Holbach, Rousseau, Montesquieu.

Manifesto of the Age of Enlightenment

The result of their joint work was a universal body of modern knowledge. Separately, it should be noted that in articles devoted to political topics, no preference was deliberately given to any form of government. And the praise that the authors addressed to the Republic of Geneva was accompanied by remarks that such a state structure is possible only for relatively small territories, to which France itself does not belong. Pluralism in its pure form dominated on the pages of the Encyclopedia, because writers in some articles advocated a limited monarchy, while in others they adhered to the absolute option, seeing only it as the basis of social welfare.

At the same time, it was separately noted that subjects have the right to resist despots, and kings must obey the law, help the poor and disadvantaged, and defend the faith of their people.

The authors of the Encyclopedia advocated easing the lot of the common people. However, to achieve this goal, they did not call for the establishment of democracy in the country, but turned to the government, drawing the attention of officials and ministers to the need for reforms in education, the economy (fair taxation, the fight against poverty).

Philosophical views

The basic ideas of Denis Diderot in the field of philosophy were formulated by him back in 1751 in the treatise “Letter on the Deaf and Dumb for the Edification of Those Who Hear.” In it he examines the problem of cognition in the context of the symbolism of words and gestures.

In 1753, he published “Thoughts on the Explanation of Nature,” which he created in the image and likeness of the works of Bacon, polemicizing with the rationalistic philosophy of Leibniz and Descartes. For example, he refuted the theory of innate ideas.

When the philosophy of Denis Diderot was formed, he categorically rejected the dualistic teaching dedicated to the bifurcation of the spiritual and material principles. He argued that in the world there is only matter that can have sensitivity, and all the diverse and complex phenomena that occur in real life are the result of the movement of its particles. Confirmation of this can be found in quotes from Denis Diderot:

Religion prevents people from seeing because it forbids them to look under pain of eternal punishment.

Take away the fear of hell from a Christian, and you take away his faith.

The God of Christians is a father who values ​​his apples extremely and his children very little.

His philosophical views also included thoughts about the influence of various external factors on the individual. Among the ideas of Denis Diderot one can find the statement that a person is solely what his environment and upbringing can make of him. Moreover, every action he performs is a necessary act in the general worldview.

Attitude to politics

Considering the worldview of Denis Diderot, the main thoughts and ideas of the philosopher and writer, it should be noted that, according to his political convictions, he was a supporter of enlightened absolutism, agreeing with Voltaire on this. Diderot also refused to trust the masses, whom he considered incapable of solving state and moral issues.

In his opinion, the ideal political system is a monarchy ruled by a sovereign endowed with philosophical and scientific knowledge. Diderot was convinced that the union of philosophers and rulers was not only possible, but also necessary.

Moreover, his own materialistic teaching was directed against the clergy. The ultimate goal was to transfer state power into the hands of philosophers.

Diderot was wrong about this. As one can judge from history, monarchs respected philosophers, but did not allow them to really influence practical politics. For example, when Diderot came to Russia in 1773, responding to the invitation of Catherine II, they spent hours having sublime conversations, but at the same time, the Russian empress was skeptical about his projects to destroy luxury at court, direct the freed funds to the needs of the people, and also about the organization universal free education.

Diderot received a large sum of money from Catherine for his library, and he was given a salary for its maintenance.

Creation

Diderot began to actively engage in creativity in the 50s. He publishes two plays - "The Father of the Family" and "The Bastard Son, or Trials of Virtue." In them, he categorically rejects the rules of the then dominant classicism, striving to create a bourgeois, bourgeois-sentimental drama, which he ultimately succeeds in. In most of his works, the conflicts that arise between representatives of the third estate come to the fore; their life and behavior in the most ordinary situations are described.

His classic works include the story “The Nun,” which we will talk about in more detail, and the novels “Ramo’s Nephew” and “Jacques the Fatalist and His Master.” For most contemporaries, these books remain unknown, since the author practically does not succeed in publishing them during his lifetime.

It is worth noting that all these works are united by realism, amazing prudence and a transparent, extremely clear style of storytelling. Reading Diderot's works has always been easy because they are almost completely devoid of verbal embellishment.

In most of his works one can find rejection of the church and religion, commitment to humanistic goals, idealized ideas about human duty.

The aesthetic and philosophical principles that Diderot proclaims can also be traced in his attitude to the fine arts. From 1759 to 1781, he regularly published reviews of Parisian salons in his friend Grimm's handwritten newspaper, called Literary Correspondence. By subscription, it is sent to influential princes and monarchs.

"Nun"

This is one of Diderot's most famous works. It depicts the depraved morals prevailing in a nunnery. In the book “The Nun” by Denis Diderot, the story is told from the perspective of a young novice who does not realize what feelings she is experiencing.

Critics note in this work an amazing combination of psychological truth with naturalism that was extremely bold for that time. All this makes Denis Diderot's story "The Nun" one of the best prose works of the 18th century, at least in France. In addition, this is an excellent example of anti-religious propaganda.

The impetus for writing this book was a real story that the author learned about. In the 50s of the 18th century, the secrets of the convent were exposed. In pre-revolutionary France, church life was one of the most exciting and pressing topics.

The story itself begins with an episode in which the main character Suzanne, who is an illegitimate child, is forcibly sent to a nunnery. In fact, she is betrayed by her own mother, but the girl still loves her and does not reveal the secret of her origin, although this could help her free herself. Instead, she makes several attempts to escape from the monastery in order to gain freedom, one of which ends successfully.

"Ramo's Nephew"

Another famous work by Diderot is the novel Rameau's Nephew. Many literary scholars consider it the pinnacle of the creativity of the hero of our article.

Catherine II, who corresponded and was on friendly terms with Voltaire, was interested in Diderot's work on the famous Encyclopedia. As soon as she took the throne, she immediately proposed moving the publication to Russia. Behind this lay not only her desire to strengthen her reputation, but also an attempt to satisfy the interest of the educated and enlightened part of Russian society in this work.

Diderot refused this offer, but agreed to sell his unique library to the empress for 50,000 livres. Moreover, the books themselves remained at his complete disposal until the end of his life. He became the custodian of works in his home in the status of the empress's personal librarian.

At the invitation of Catherine, he stayed in St. Petersburg from October 1773 to March 1774. During this time he was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.

When he returned to France, he wrote several essays devoted to the possible introduction of Russia to European civilization. His skeptical statements about Catherine’s policies aroused her anger, but they became known in Russia after the philosopher’s death.

In 1784 he died in Paris at the age of 70.

Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 - July 31, 1784) was a French educational philosopher, writer and playwright who founded the Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts (1751). Foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1773).

Diderot's style is original. The most lively, mobile mind among the enlighteners of the 18th century, Diderot writes with emotional expressiveness and specificity. Diderot is one of those integral natures with a complete worldview who cannot limit their horizons to any specialty or particular problems. His greatest achievement was the creation of the Encyclopedia, the first volume of which appeared in 1751, and which was published intermittently for twenty-nine years. In all her articles one can feel the influence of the thought of Diderot, an ideologist of the militant bourgeoisie, a writer who colored all the various topics he touched on with the mindset of the then advanced class.

Biography

Diderot Denis was born into a family of cutlers. He received his education at the Jesuit College of Langres, at the Parisian Jansenite College d'Harcourt. His father refused to support him, because Diderot aroused his anger by abandoning his church career. Diderot made a living by private lessons and occasional articles in magazines, writing sermons. His circle of friends at that time consisted mainly of the same semi-impoverished intellectuals.

Next, his father put him in prison because Diderot, having fallen in love with his future wife Antoinette Champion (who lived in great poverty with her widowed mother), was going to marry her and demanded his share of the family fortune. Having escaped from prison, Diderot returned to Paris, where he and Nanette secretly got married.

They were publicly burned in the early 1740s Philosophical thoughts, printed without the name of the author, where Diderot appears as a skeptic and freethinker. By this time, Diderot the philosopher had already reached maturity, declaring himself as an atheist, materialist and determinist, but above all as a champion of skepticism.

After the publication in 1749 of a defiantly daring Letters about the blind for the edification of the sighted, Diderot was imprisoned in the Vincennes fortress-prison, where he spent about four months. Soon published Letter about the deaf and dumb. In both Letters a thought dear to Diderot prevails: a philosopher may need to “blind himself” in order to truly see, and “become deaf” in order to hear properly.

Around 1756 Diderot wrote a drama The bastard son. This was followed by Diderot's second play Father of the family. In the discussions that accompanied these plays, Diderot establishes a new type of dramatic art, which he calls the “serious genre.” The middle (between tragedy and comedy) genre subsequently became widespread under the name of drama. The “serious genre” removed the boundaries between the aristocratic classes and the lower ones; the right to the tragic ceased to be the exclusive right of court society.

In the mid-1760s, Diderot, caring for a dowry for his daughter, sold his library to Catherine II. Diderot became an adviser to Catherine II in matters related to painting, and helped her start the Hermitage collection. In 1775, at the request of Catherine II, he drew up a Plan for a university or school for public teaching of sciences for the Russian government.

In February 1774 he was struck down, and Diderot died on July 31 of the same year; his wife Nanette prevented attempts to convert the dying man into the fold of the church. In accordance with his wishes, his daughter Angelica sent a copy of the unpublished manuscripts to Catherine II. The Diderot library, purchased by the empress back in 1765, was also transported to St. Petersburg.

Literary heritage Diderot consists of two groups of works. One is works published during his lifetime and of great, but essentially only historical interest; the other - several wonderful works in prose such as The Nun, Rameau's Nephew, Jacques the Fatalist and His Master, barely known to Diderot's contemporaries, but saying a lot to the modern reader.

Denis Diderot

Introduction

For a quarter of a century, Diderot stood at the head of a grandiose enterprise - the publication of the famous "Encyclopedia", promoting the awakening and growth of the revolutionary consciousness of the masses. Diderot's materialism was far ahead of the philosophical system of Voltaire, the patriarch of the Enlightenment, their oldest and universally recognized leader. Diderot stood on the threshold of dialectical materialism. His life is full of the most intense struggle, the most energetic activity in the field of thought and is very simple, poor in events and ordinary in its external everyday flow.

"Encyclopedia"

Diderot was born in 1713 in Langres, an ancient French town famous only for its historical attractions - the ruins of Roman fortifications and a magnificent cathedral of the 12th century. In the 19th century A monumental monument to the great thinker of France was added to the city's attractions. Father Diderot belonged to hereditary artisans who numbered many generations in their family, passing on the art of making knives from father to son. The family was wealthy, which made it possible for Denis Diderot to get an education at one of the best educational institutions in the capital, at the Garcourt College in Paris.

Initially, Denis was destined to become a priest, and he himself became interested in reading sacred books. However, the young man’s inquisitive thoughts could not be satisfied with church dogmas; he came initially to deism, and then to the denial of religion.

At college, Diderot studied ancient and modern languages ​​with interest; Subsequently, he was attracted to the exact sciences, the theoretical foundations of crafts, art, and philosophy. The father, seeing that his son did not follow his instructions and was not going to become a priest, refused him financial support. Since 1733, Diderot joined the large Parisian crowd of intellectuals who earned occasional pennies for some literary work; in the morning, waking up, they didn’t know whether they would get anything for lunch; lived in attics in the capital's Latin Quarter.

Of what Diderot wrote, and he wrote a lot, only part of it ended up in print, bringing upon the author hatred and all sorts of punishments from the authorities - secular and spiritual. In 1746 Philosophical Thoughts appeared. The Parisian court (parliament) sentenced this work to destruction, and it was burned by the hand of the executioner. In 1749, Diderot wrote “Letter on the Blind for the Edification of the Sighted,” a clearly atheistic work, and was sent to prison (Vincennes Castle) for a hundred days.

In 1746, the publisher Lebreton invited him as editor of the Encyclopedia. Lebreton only thought about publishing a dictionary that did not pretend to be original or highly scientific, translated from some foreign model. Diderot turned this tiny commercial venture of the publisher into an event of enormous cultural and political importance. Together with all the figures of the French Enlightenment, he created a monumental work of national significance, and until the end of his days he was busy with this work, overcoming numerous obstacles, censorship resistance, the fears of his publisher, prohibitions and persecution of the authorities. He himself wrote about a thousand articles for the Encyclopedia.

The Encyclopedia was published over a period of 30 years 1 . Several times the government tried to strangle the work that had begun; the hunted d'Alembert could not withstand the tension of the struggle and stepped away from the leadership of the publication. Diderot alone brought the matter to the end.

Sometimes the Encyclopedia was “saved” by the whims of the court. Voltaire says that once in Trianon there was a conversation about how gunpowder was made (the Duke of Nivernois did not know this), how blush and silk stockings were made (the all-powerful favorite of the king, the Marquise of Pompadour, did not know this). We turned to the Encyclopedia. They recognized and admired. Thus her fate was sealed.

All educators participated in the publication of the Encyclopedia: Rousseau wrote articles on music, Turgot wrote articles on political economy. The article “Reason” was written by Voltaire. Montesquieu gave an interesting work on aesthetics (the article “Taste”). Holbach wrote on issues of religion.

The Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, of course, differs from our modern encyclopedias. This is more of a huge collective literary, journalistic, polemical work than a scientific reference book in its literal sense. The materials of the Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment themselves indicate that there was no pre-prepared and scientifically processed dictionary with an exact calculation of the number of lines, columns, etc., depending on the importance and meaning of the word, as is currently done with such publications. Therefore, it will seem strange to the modern reader that for the word “Europe” the Encyclopedia allocated one column (vol. IV), and next to it the term “Military Evolutions” took up several pages (169–207), that many important words are not explained at all: no, for example, articles about Shakespeare. In a number of cases, the materials presented in the Encyclopedia did not even correspond to the then level of science; such, for example, is information about Russia.

It is necessary to take into account the difficulties of the work of a few editors who did not have an adequate staff of workers or a sufficient number of conscientious authors. “You have bad soldiers with good generals,” wrote Voltaire d’Alembert. Editors sometimes deliberately published materials that contradicted their own views (mainly on issues of religion and theology). To do this, they invited clergy themselves as authors. Thus, for example, in the Encyclopedia, a certain Abbot Mallet wrote for a long time on religious issues, about whose articles Voltaire said that he was “sick of reading them.” Diderot and d’Alembert, in the introduction to volume IV of the Encyclopedia, specifically declared their principle: “ We are even ready to allow the publication of articles with opposite points of view on the same topic, if the issue deserves it.” This is what they did: they printed a long, sickeningly boring theological article, and next to it they placed some anecdote about miracles, a ridiculous story about saints, or an ironic pun on Christian dogma. Readers, of course, passed by the reasoning of the humble abbot, but what they read remembered and passed on to others some biting anti-church anecdote.

The plan of the encyclopedists, undoubtedly, was unraveled by the government and the clergy. No wonder the worst enemy of Voltaire and the Enlightenment, journalist Freron, wrote about the editors of the Encyclopedia: “These are dangerous wolves disguised as sheep.”

Pope Clement XIII, in a special breve (message) dated September 3, 1759, condemned the Encyclopedia to be burned. The French Jesuits, in memory of this event, knocked out a medal with the colorful Latin inscription “Trampled on wicked wisdom.” The medal depicted a globe and a book (“false wisdom”), crushed (“trampled”) by a cross (“triumphant church”). The Ecumenical Council (1965), chaired by Pope Paul VI, abolished the Index.

Diderot in Russia

In 1773, an important event occurred in Diderot’s life: he accepted Catherine II’s offer to come to Russia. The main work on the Encyclopedia was completed, and he could afford to leave France for a while.

Russia warmly welcomed the great philosopher, and he was filled with the most sincere sympathy for the Russian people. For a long time, there was an opinion in science that the French educator, having stayed in St. Petersburg for about a year, was not interested in Russian culture, but, as the research of Professor V.I. Chuchmarev, Diderot did a lot to study the Russian language and literature and brought a whole library of Russian books from Russia.

Catherine II often talked with Diderot and wrote Voltaire the most enthusiastic reviews about these conversations with his brother. It is unlikely that everything that the French guest expressed in these conversations pleased the Russian empress, for example, his following statement about the appointment of the philosopher: “He tells the people that strength is on their side, and if they are led to slaughter, it is because they themselves allow behave". Or: “The results of the revolution compensate for the blood that was shed for them.” Diderot was once present in St. Petersburg at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences and gave Academician Euler a list of questions about Russia. Academician Laxman gave the answers. Diderot was elected an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

His conversation with Catherine about the capital of Russia is interesting. He said: “Border towns by their very nature must be fortresses, places of defense or exchange,” “it is very inappropriate to place the heart on the tip of the finger.” Catherine replied that Moscow could become the “seat of the court” no sooner than in hundreds of years.

Returning to France, Diderot never went anywhere else and died in 1784. Not long before, Catherine II bought him a mansion in the noble district of Paris in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where the writer moved from his poor apartment on the fourth floor of one of the houses in the Latin Quarter. The Russian Empress provided great financial support to the philosopher, purchasing his personal library from him and making Diderot its custodian. (The salary was paid 50 years in advance, so the philosopher joked that honor obliges him to live another fifty years.)

In a letter to d'Alembert, Catherine wrote: “It would be cruel to separate a scientist from his books. I was often afraid that mine would be taken away from me, so before I had a rule never to talk about what I had read. My own experience prevented me cause such difficulty to another." The purchase took place in 1765. 20 years later, after Diderot's death, the library arrived in St. Petersburg. It consisted of 2904 volumes. Nowadays their fate is unknown.

Philosophical works of Diderot

Diderot began with a frank recognition of the Christian God. Here the influence of the prevailing ideology on the inexperienced and still inexperienced mind of the young thinker was felt (free translation and commentary on the book of the English philosopher Shaftesbury, which he published under the title “Principles of Moral Philosophy, or Mr. Shaftesbury’s Experiments on Dignity and Virtue,” 1745).

A year later, in his first independent work, “Philosophical Thoughts,” Diderot had already renounced the unconditional recognition of the Christian God. The Paris Parliament, which condemned this work to be burned, wrote in its resolution that in Diderot’s “Philosophical Thoughts” “with feigned pretense all religions were placed on the same level, so as not to recognize any in the end.” In the essay “Letter on the Blind for the Edification of the Sighted,” he refutes religion not by exposing the absurdities of the Holy Scriptures, as he did before, but by outlining the basic principles of materialism leading to the denial of religion. The educational movement in France in this work by Diderot said a new word and took a new step forward.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) - French writer and playwright, philosopher and educator. In 1751 he founded the Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts. Since 1773, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Birth and family

Subsequently, the philosopher mentioned that his grandmother had an incredibly large offspring, she had twenty-two children, which indicates the strength of the female body.

Father Diderot was just as active, energetic and healthy. He inherited the family business; their family had been producing scissors, knives and similar tools for a long time. The philosopher's father was also involved in this handicraft industry; he was a cutler. But the elder Diderot did not at all resemble a village handicraftsman; the man was hardworking, self-possessed, unassuming, inclined to education, and greatly valued family life. In general, in all respects he was known as an exemplary person - a father, a worker, a family man. He had a strong influence on his famous son.

Father Diderot was also an amazing storyteller. When in the evening after a working day he sat down in his favorite big chair and began to share his stories, not only family members, but also neighbors gathered around. It was this passion for stories that he inherited from his father and Denis.

Almost nothing is known about the woman who gave life to the philosopher. Diderot barely mentions his mother in his numerous memoirs.

Education

Denis also had a younger brother, and their father dreamed that the boys would build a successful career in life, becoming priests. Therefore, he tried his best to give them a decent education. In 1723, Father Diderot sent his sons to study at the Jesuit College of Langres. The younger child was naturally less gifted than Denis, and immediately fell under the influence of the Jesuits. The eldest felt uncomfortable in the educational institution and soon announced to his father that he did not want to continue his studies.

The father did not insist, telling his son: “If you don’t want to study, it means you want to work as a cutler all your life,” and the next day he entrusted him with the job. However, no matter what Denis took on, everything fell out of his hands. After some time, he realized that it was better to study, so he collected his textbooks and went to college. The Jesuits were incredibly happy about his return, because they immediately saw in him an extraordinary talented child and wanted to use him for their own purposes. They persuaded Denis to leave her father's house and go with them to another city.

But the elder Diderot became aware of this plan, he closed the outer door in the house and hid the key. When Denis wanted to leave his home at midnight, his father stood on the threshold and asked where he was going. The young man replied that he was going to Paris. Father said: "Fine. You will go to Paris, but tomorrow afternoon.” The elder Diderot kept his promise, bought two seats on the stagecoach, and he and his son went to the capital.

Here his father did not enroll him in a Jesuit educational institution, deciding that one abbot in the person of his youngest son would be enough for the family. In 1728, Denis Diderot entered the Jansenite College d'Harcourt to study as a lawyer. For two weeks, the father sacrificed his craft and remained in Paris until he was convinced that his son liked everything: the college, the teachers, and his comrades. Only then did he go home .

Little is known about Diderot's studies in Paris, but there is one reliable fact. Soon after his admission, Denis received punishment for helping one of his comrades prepare a lesson. Even then, his quality was evident, with which he went through his entire life - not sparing himself, helping others.

Teaching activities

In 1732, Denis completed his studies, and it was time to think about further work. The father insisted on a legal career and helped his son get a job in the office of a Parisian lawyer. But young Diderot, instead of managing the affairs of his boss, studied languages ​​(Italian, Greek, English, Latin) and mathematics, which he adored. His patron repeatedly wrote letters of complaint to the elder Diderot, together they tried to set the frivolous Denis on the right path, proving to him how necessary it is to have a good profession in life. To which the young man answered them: “Why do I need a profession? I love science. I’m already fine, I’m happy with everything.”

Young Diderot lost his job, and besides, his behavior greatly angered his father; he did not understand how a person could live without bringing any benefit to society. Denis's father refused all help and money, so twenty-year-old Diderot found himself on the street without a single penny. His passion for science was so strong that he was not afraid to break off relations with his family and remain poor.

Denis began giving private lessons, but the income from them was extremely meager. He had a rather strange way of dealing with students. If he saw in a teenager a gift for science, then even if he was poor and could not pay, he could sit with him from morning until late at night. He didn’t want to teach someone who was mediocre, even if he was rich. With such an attitude towards private lessons, Diderot sometimes went hungry.

At some point, he decided to deviate from his principles and got a job as a home teacher for a rich man to teach his children. The conditions were excellent: a separate room, food and an annual salary of 1,500 francs were provided. But three months later, Diderot asked to be fired. His employer did not want to let the talented teacher go and offered to double his salary. But the teacher replied: “You do everything well for me: the room is wonderful, the food, and you pay more money than I need. But I teach your children, and I myself become a child, I decline mentally. Sometimes I feel like I’m dying, and I don’t want that. I need to do science and develop. I need freedom."

Years of poverty

Denis left the rich house, and in his hungry and cold attic he was happy again. He again took up private lessons, wrote occasional articles and translations for magazines, and composed sermons for bishops. Sometimes Diderot felt so hungry that he resorted to deception. This happened with one monk who gave money to those who would enter the monastery of the Discalced Carmelites. Denis assured him several times that he wanted to become a monk, and received money for it. Soon the monk realized what was happening, and the future philosopher had to starve again.

It happened that Diderot did not have a single sou or a crumb of bread, then he went for a walk to suppress the feeling of hunger and reflect on the vicissitudes of his fate. Then he returned home to fall asleep. But one day he did not reach home and fell unconscious. Strangers realized what happened, brought him to his senses and fed him. That evening Denis swore that if he had the means, he would never refuse a beggar.

He lived like this until his marriage. He dressed casually, wore the same outfit every day: a plush frock coat with torn sleeves and black woolen stockings darned with white threads. He lived anywhere, often spending the night with his friends, who, by and large, were just as poor as he was. It happened that he found himself in bad company, but thanks to his independent character and intelligence, they did not have a detrimental effect on him.

Creation

In the early 1740s, Denis received a commission to translate “Discourses on Dignity and Virtue” by the English philosopher Anthony Shaftesbury, who was still little known in France at that time. This marked the beginning of his independent work on philosophy:

• 1746 – “Philosophical Thoughts”;
• 1747 – “Alleys, or the Skeptic’s Walk”;
• 1748 – “Immodest Treasures”;
• 1749 – “Letters about the blind for the edification of the sighted.”

His essay “Philosophical Thoughts” was published without a name and was an incredible success, expressed at least in the fact that the book was publicly burned. Diderot reached a certain maturity as a philosopher, gradually his positions changed from deism to atheism, and then to materialism. For “Letters on the Blind,” the philosopher spent four months in prison in the Vincennes fortress-prison.

Denis was smart not only in philosophy, but also in other areas: natural science, literature, painting, social sciences, theater. Given such a comprehensive education, he, together with his friend, the French philosopher and scientist Jean Leron d'Alembert, was invited to become the head of the publishing house of the Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts.

The first volume was published in 1751. In total, 28 out of 35 volumes (17 text and 11 illustrations) were published under his leadership. Diderot worked on the Encyclopedia almost until his death and wrote most of the articles on the exact sciences, religion, economics, politics, philosophy, and mechanics. During this period, he worked closely with famous French writers and philosophers Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Paul Henri Holbach.

While working on the encyclopedia, two more philosophical works by Diderot were published - “Letter on the Deaf and Dumb” and “Thoughts on the Explanation of Nature”.

In 1756, a comedy by the Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni accidentally fell into the hands of the philosopher. Under the impression, in 1757 Diderot wrote his first play, “The Bastard, or Trials of Virtue,” and a year later the next one, “The Father of the Family,” was published. Both works were about family relationships. In them, Denis established a new genre in theatrical and literary art - something between tragedy and comedy, which later received the name drama.

The fate of Diderot's novels and stories was even more successful. The work “Jacques the Fatalist and His Master” was recognized after the writer’s death as the best. The novel “The Nun,” about the depraved morals of a convent, is no less popular; it was recognized as the best work of French prose of the 18th century. The novel was filmed twice by French directors - in 1966 by Jacques Rivette, in 2013 by Guillaume Nicloux.

Connections with Russia

In the mid-1760s, Denis decided to sell his unique library; his daughter was becoming an adult, and it was necessary to take care of her dowry. Having learned about this, the Empress of Russia Catherine II made a counter proposal to Diderot: she would buy his books, but Denis should remain their custodian and become the personal librarian of the Russian ruler. In addition, Diderot received the position of personal adviser to Catherine the Great on painting issues, and it was he who came up with the idea of ​​the Hermitage collection.

In 1773 he visited St. Petersburg. Denis composed treatises for the Empress of Russia, in which he urged her to abolish serfdom and destroy luxury at court. He also proposed a project for a new public education system, which provided for free primary education. The ruler of Russia was skeptical about his proposals, but still received the Frenchman with honors and spent whole hours talking with him.

Catherine bought the philosopher's library back in 1765, but it was transported to Russia only after Diderot's death in 1784. Until this time, she paid him a certain salary for the maintenance of the library. This literary heritage consists of two groups: works that were published during the writer’s lifetime, and completely unknown prose works.

Personal life

In 1743, Diderot rented a room from the widow of a bankrupt artisan, Madame Champion. She had a young daughter, Anna, who had recently graduated from a monastery school. Denis came up with various tricks to get dates with the girl, since her mother was keeping a watchful eye on her. But the lovers still got married, performing a secret wedding ceremony at midnight.

However, the marriage was not happy, even though Diderot’s beloved daughter was born. Soon he began to cheat on his wife, and then fell in love with a woman who became the dream of his life. He met lonely Sophie Volant in 1757, when they were both over forty. Wise Sophie, who never knew the joy of family happiness and motherhood, did not demand anything from her beloved, only his letters, full of revelations and feelings. Their romance lasted about thirty years, during which time more than five hundred letters were written. Sophie Volan died five months earlier than her lover.

Death

Diderot seriously undermined his health during his trip to Russia. However, having returned to France, he did not undergo treatment and continued to engage in literary activities, was constantly overwhelmed with work and had no time to rest.

In 1784, the already weakened body was crippled by a disease of the gastrointestinal tract. Diderot died on July 31, 1784 in Paris. Since 1979, a crater on the far side of the Moon bears his name.

The French philosopher and writer Denis Diderot is remembered by the world for his treatises on religion and art, heartfelt novels about the cruel lot of nuns, poignant family plays and the largest reference book of the Enlightenment - the Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts. His correspondence with Sophie Volant is a standard of romantic writing, revealing the depths of a stern but fair representative of 18th-century France.

Childhood and youth

The biography of Denis Diderot begins on October 5, 1713 in the French city of Langres. Of the 7 children of Didier Diderot and Angelique Vigneron, only four lived to adulthood. Denis, being the eldest child, helped raise his sisters Denise (1715-1797) and Angelique (1720-1749), brother Pierre-Didier (1722-1787). According to historians, Denis treated Denise most warmly, admired her, and called her “Socrates in female form.”

As a child, the future writer established himself as a brilliant student. The parents decided that the boy would serve the church. In 1726, Denis entered the Catholic Lyceum of Louis the Great, where priests were educated, and then the Jansenist Collège d'Harcourt. Studying the universe and man's place in it, Diderot graduated from college in 1732 and received a master's degree in philosophy.

The ideas of his contemporary era, views on the history of statehood and law prompted Diderot to leave the priestly profession and enter the law faculty of the University of Paris. Later, in 1749, the Frenchman finally became disillusioned with religion: his beloved sister Angelique, being a nun, died from overwork while performing a church service.

Books and theater

The desire to become a writer overtook Denis Diderot in 1743, and he began by translating English works into French. Early works include Temple Stanyan's History of Greece (1743) and Robert James's Medical Dictionary (1746-1748). In 1745 he published An Essay on Dignity and Virtue by the English philosopher Anthony Shaftesbury, but with his own reflections.

In 1746, Diderot published his first author's work, Philosophical Thoughts. In this work, the Frenchman reflected on the reconciliation of reason with feeling and came to the conclusion that without discipline, feeling would be destructive, and reason was necessary for control. At the time of writing, Diderot followed the ideas of deism, so the work contains arguments against atheism and criticism of Christianity.

The religious idea is discussed at length in The Skeptic's Walk (1747). This work is a dialogue between a deist, an atheist and a pantheist about the nature of divinity. The deist relies on a teleological argument, the atheist explains the origin of the universe by physics, chemistry and the laws of dynamics, the pantheist says that God is the cosmic unity of mind and matter.

“A Skeptic’s Walk” was published only in 1830: local police threatened Diderot with burning the manuscript and arrest if this “heresy” spread. The threat was realized in 1749 - the philosopher was imprisoned in Vincennes prison for his work “Letter on the Blind for Those Who Can See.” In solitary confinement, Diderot had only John Milton's Paradise Lost, in the margins of which he left notes with a toothpick and homemade ink. The imprisonment lasted from July to November.

In 1750, Diderot became the editor-in-chief of the largest French reference book of the Enlightenment, the Encyclopedia, or explanatory dictionary of sciences, arts and crafts. Over the 16 years of work on the book, Denis wrote several hundred articles on economics, mechanics, philosophy, politics and religion. Charles Louis de Montesquieu and other great Frenchmen worked side by side with Diderot.

Diderot edited 28 of the 35 volumes of the Encyclopedia. Cooperation with the publisher Andre le Breton ceased because he, without the knowledge of the thinker, deleted “dangerous” thoughts from articles. Considering this act a betrayal, the philosopher said goodbye to his monumental work.

In the 1750s, the Frenchman turned to the theater and composed a number of plays dedicated to family themes. The drama “The Illegitimate Son” (1757) addresses the topic of illegitimate children, and “The Father of the Family” (1758) is an autobiographical work about choosing a wife according to the dictates of the heart, and not according to the desire of the father.

In Diderot's time, theater was divided into high (that is, tragedy) and low (that is, comedy). The philosopher did not accept such a system and in “The Paradox of the Actor” he wrote that aristocrats have happy moments in their lives, while the poor have sad ones. In his work, he comes up with a “serious genre” that blurs the line between tragedy and comedy.

In addition to philosophical treatises, works on art (“Salons”), and plays, Diderot wrote works of art. The key ones are the novel “Jacques the Fatalist and His Master” (1765-1780), the dialogue “Ramo’s Nephew” (1760s), and the story “The Nun” (1780). Diderot also wrote many aphorisms, including the saying “ladder mind,” which implies finding a suitable answer at a time when time has already passed for it.

The biography of Denis Diderot is closely connected with Russia, namely with. Having learned about the financial difficulties of the talented French philosopher, the Empress offered to buy his library and appoint him as an observer with a salary of 1000 livres per year. She paid Diderot an advance for 25 years of service in advance.

In October 1773, the Frenchman arrived in St. Petersburg and stayed in Russia for 5 months. During this period, Diderot and Catherine II met almost daily. Wanting to attract the empress's attention to his thoughts, the philosopher patted her legs.

In a letter to Maria Geoffrin, the owner of a French literary salon, Catherine wrote that after conversations with Diderot, black bruises remained on her thighs.

One of the main topics for discussion is the transformation of Russia into an ideal state, the creation of a utopia. Catherine the Great apparently considered Diderot's thoughts unreasonable. In correspondence with diplomat Louis-Philippe Segur, the Empress wrote that if you follow his ideas, chaos will befall Russia.

Personal life

At the beginning of 1743, the philosopher met Anne Antoinette Champion (1710-1796), an uneducated girl from the lower class, who lived with her mother in the same house as Diderot. The young man, wanting to marry her, asked his father for permission. Didier not only opposed his son’s idea, but achieved a “letter with a seal,” that is, the extrajudicial arrest of Denis. The writer was imprisoned in the Carmelite monastery.

A few weeks later, Diderot fled and immediately sent his beloved a letter, concluding the main question - whether Antoinette agreed to get married. The girl refused: she did not want to get involved with a family where she was not welcome. However, later the Frenchwoman changed her mind. On the night of November 6, 1743, Diderot and Champion secretly got married in one of the churches in Paris, which allows marriage without parental consent. Interesting fact: Denis’s father found out about his son’s marriage 6 years later.

The marriage produced four children. The first-born, Angelica, was born on August 14, 1744, and a month and a half later, on September 29, she died. François' sons Jacques and Denis-Laurent also died in infancy. The only surviving child was Marie-Angelica (1753-1824), named after the Frenchman's deceased mother and sister. She became famous as an instrumentalist.

Diderot's personal life was also stormy outside of marriage. Among his mistresses are the writer Madeleine de Puisier, the daughter of the French actor Jeannie-Catherine de Meaux and, of course, Sophie Volant. Mademoiselle Volant's real name is Louise-Henriette, and Diderot gave Sophie the nickname, admiring the wisdom of her thoughts. The initially meaningless correspondence began in 1755, over time turning into a novel in letters, and ended in 1784, with the death of Sophie.

Thanks to the numbering of the philosopher himself, it is known for certain that he sent Sophie 553 letters, 187 have survived to this day. They contain quotes that scream about the sincerity of feelings:

“I love you as you can love only once, and I will not love anyone except you.”

There are no return letters from Sophie to Diderot, what the girl looked like, history is also silent. It is said that a friend of the philosopher painted a portrait of Mademoiselle Volant on the flyleaf of Horace's book. After Diderot's death, Catherine II bought his entire library, but the mysterious image was never found.

Death

At the age of 71, having outlived Sophie Volant by 5 months, Denis Diderot died on July 31, 1784 from emphysema.

The body was buried in the Church of St. Roch, but during the French Revolution of 1789, all the graves in the temple were destroyed. Now the exact location of the philosopher’s remains is unknown.

Quotes

To take a vow of poverty means to swear to be a lazy person and a thief. To take a vow of chastity is to promise God to continually break the wisest and most important of his laws. To take a vow of obedience means to renounce an inalienable human right - freedom. If a person keeps his vow, he is a criminal; if he breaks it, he is an oathbreaker. Life in a monastery is the life of a fanatic or a hypocrite.

Women drink flattering lies in one sip, and bitter truths in drops.

Art lies in finding the extraordinary in the ordinary and the ordinary in the extraordinary.

People stop thinking when they stop reading.

Works

• 1746 - “Philosophical Thoughts”
• 1747 - "The Skeptic's Walk"
• 1749 - “Letter on the Blind for Those Who Can See”
• 1750-1766 - “Encyclopedia, or explanatory dictionary of sciences, arts and crafts”
• 1751 - “Letter about the Deaf and Dumb”
• 1757 - "Illegitimate Son"
• 1758 - “Father of the Family”
• 1759-1781 - “Salons”
• 1763 - “Ramo’s Nephew”
• 1771-1778 - “Jacques the fatalist and his master”
• 1780 - "The Nun"