Diderot, Denis (1713–84)

AbstractDiderot is one of the three greatestphilosophesof the French Enlightenment. Throughout the 1740s Diderot tended towards deism; subsequently he embraced atheism together with determinism and materialist monism, but without relinquishing his fundamental humanism. Diderot became famous in the course of the 1750s. In 1747, he had assumed, with d'Alembert, the editorship of theEncyclopédie(1751–72) whose utilitarian aims included the dissemination of knowledge concerning not only eighteenth‐century science but also the liberal and mechanical arts. But Diderot and his collaborators also strove to set aside received ideas in order to provide a basis for progress. Diderot's commitment to freedom of thought and expression, his opposition to absolutism, and his editorship of theEncyclopédietogether posed an important challenge toancien régimeideology in the years preceding the French Revolution.