Denis Diderot was a pivotal figure of the Enlightenment, best known for his role as co-founder and chief editor of the Encyclopédie, a monumental work aimed at disseminating knowledge across disciplines. Diderot championed reason, science, and critical thinking, challenging traditional religious and political authority. His writings, which spanned philosophy, art, and literature, advocated for intellectual freedom and questioned societal norms.
While some of Diderot's principal works are widely available in digital form, including in collections at ARTFL such as Frantext and the Encyclopédie, many of his works remain relatively inaccessible. The ARTFL Diderot Collection is our preliminary effort to assemble as many of the works of Diderot for ARTFL Subscribers as possible. This beta release contains 210 documents drawn from several different collections at ARTFL as well as new data captured from various editions which was funded by ARTFL Sustaining Members. Diderot's substantial contributions to the Encyclopédie are included, organized as well attributed articles by volume.
This is a work in progress. We expect to add new materials going forward and may replace some of the documents in the collection with newer/different editions or texts for which new data capture is warranted. The dating of the texts is complicated. In general, we have attempted to date the texts approximately by year of composition, but this is not always possible. Please feel free to contact us with suggestions, comments and error reports.