Diderot: Natural Philosopher (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment: 2008:09)

By: Kurt Ballstadt

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Synopsis: One of the most eclectic and enigmatic of the philosophes, Denis Diderot left an intellectual legacy that has the capacity to stimulate, perplex and even confound. Particularly challenging are his writings on the natural sciences, an area largely neglected by scholars over the past fifty years.In Diderot: natural philosopher Kurt Ballstadt examines the entirety of Diderot’s scientific works from the Lettre sur les aveugles to the Eléments de physiologie, investigating his fascination with mathematics, experimental physics, chemistry, natural history and medicine, and drawing out the crucial points of contact between these disciplines. Diderot is shown to have a well-constructed philosophy of science and an integrated, sophisticated vision of how the world functions. We are led away from the image of a radical Diderot, champion of disorder, to an analysis of a more systematic thinker whose underlying search for structure characterized both his attitude to the world around him, and the way he wrote about it.Situating these writings on natural philosophy in the intellectual landscape of the Enlightenment, this book will engage Diderot scholars and historians of eighteenth-century science alike.