Denis Diderot and a Drama of the Philosophical Language

Abstract

Some parts in Diderot’s textual corpus are identified as philosophical, others as literary and thus classified as philosophy or/and as fiction. To understand why, it is probably necessary to analyze the specifics of Diderot’s writing, his style and discursive proceedings. Diderot should be read after all: he is made of nothing less (or more) than language, written language, independently of the imposed classifications. Philosophy in the context of the eighteenth century – and particularly in texts by Diderot – can be seen as a field which is equally, critically and uncompromisingly irrigated by both – science and arts. If the Encyclopaedia has suceeded in redefining science and arts by changing radically the circumstances of access to knowledge, it seems evident that Diderot, through creation of this great language assembling, has succeeded himself to reunite different linguistic expressions in his textual work and thus became the author of his own voice.