Book, Diderot works 6 The Encyclopedist 1 history of philosophy[LS]

Imprisoned in the Castle of Vincennes, after the publication of his Letter on the Blind, Diderot found himself unable to continue the work of organizing, proposing, writing and revising the texts of the Encyclopedia. Its editors, Le Breton, David, Durand and Briasson, had to request the intervention of Count d'Argenson, then Minister of State, so that the philosopher could be released and 'the most beautiful and most useful enterprise ever undertaken by the world of books'. Without a doubt, the Encyclopedia constitutes the greatest summary of the knowledge of the West and its Lights, as well as of the spirit that illuminated it with his knowledge and his genius, the 'Encyclopedist', constituting, for this very reason, the maximum symbol of the attempt of reason and science to reach, if not omniscience, at least an understanding and description of its essential aspects. In fact, the driving force behind this challenging undertaking was Diderot, with his tenacity of work and his multidisciplinary knowledge, having personally written many texts of this 'encyclopic' summary, as witnessed by the entries collected in the present collection, of which 'History of Philosophy I ', which the publisher Perspectiva makes available to its readers, constitutes the first volume.