The Conceptual Changes and Their Significance Among Mid-to-Late Enlightenment Philosophers/Writers 1 : From Around 1730 to Approximately 1760

Anyone who has studied France, even slightly, tends to perceive the 18th century with the preconceived notion of it being the “Age of Enlightenment.” Even academic researchers have fallen into a kind of “dogmatism,” viewing and studying the period solely from the perspective of Enlightenment thought, as if it were the natural approach. Consequently, it became a common phenomenon for numerous scholars of the 18th century to frame the entire century as the age of Enlightenment. In this study, we sought to move beyond this “dogmatic” approach and instead focus on the diverse intellectual activities of thinkers who held differing views from the Enlightenment philosophers. In particular, we examined writers such as Marivaux, Prévost, and Palissot, who, unlike the Enlightenment philosophers who constructed an ideal image of the philosopher according to their ideological principles, sought to expose the hypocrisy of their contemporaries, thereby undermining the intellectual authority of their Enlightenment counterparts or exploring the true conditions necessary to be a philosopher. Through this research, we have come to understand that even in the 1760s, the concept of the “philosopher/writer” was not fixed. Accordingly, its meaning varied depending on who used the term and when it was used. This explains why the image of the philosopher/writer was represented in diverse ways across numerous works published between approximately 1730 and 1760.