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apart Encyclopedia, Diderot is hardly less significant in the eighteenth century, Voltaire and Rousseau. Before Rousseau, Voltaire and when everything was still bound by prejudice, vanity, worldly ambitions, Diderot had openly declared the man of nature. And here is what nature was for him.
She was - she was at least early on - atheism. God is not in nature. There can be, and there is nothing to do with him. The world is a vast pool where an infinite number of balls roll, intersect, collide, forming an intricate network of movements required, which never run out. But morality? She will not suffer. "Do not you think you can be born so happily found great pleasure in doing good? - I think. - That may have received an excellent education that strengthens the natural tendency to charity? - Certainly. - And that in a later age, the experience has convinced us that on the whole, it is better for his happiness in this world, be an honest man a knave? "Instinct, education and experience: that which is sufficient for morality. Be virtuous to get to heaven, God is lend to small-time , and the trouble is that the lender gives stuffed crocodiles, not good species, for the virtue of vestries is to go to Mass, not to touch the sacred vessels, love comes after the next. Religion, which punishes more sacrilegious than adultery is immoral, it leaves for practices, remain all the corruption of the world. It is a source of crime, fanaticism, war, torture, etc.. : It's too expensive to buy a foundation of morality, which founds nothing at all. God exists or not, if it exists, it does not exist in nature, we do not take them into account. There is no for us, if we say a few imprudent not there at all, there is not much wrong with that. A fine day out of life, we were face to face with him in his world, well, God is not bad enough for hell we want to have it denied, when we had no reason to think so.
Nature, secondly, for Diderot, the opposite of society. All evils, the vices of man, come from the company that invented religion, power, distinctions, hierarchy, wealth, that is to say oppression of some, the tyranny of others, corruption and misery for everyone - especially who invented morality. Because that is the characteristic of Diderot: boldly, bluntly, sometimes cynical, often profound, he attacks morality. It is a social institution, especially its hateful hypocritical compulsion exerted by it: the name of morality, we instructed children to refrain some legitimate pleasures that result from natural functions.
is the naturalism of Rabelais, one of Panurge and Friar John, who reappears in Diderot, in these people he has chosen and conformed to his ideal, in Rameau's Nephew and Jacques the fatalist . It deletes all the virtues, Christian, Stoic, even mundane, who did report that the individual, and are based on respect for oneself. Chastity, modesty, sobriety, reserve, dignity, sincerity, that all this nonsense, prejudice and inconvenience of society. Scruples, the delicacy of the means are absurd grimaces when one is assured of its intention, and we know the good: see the curious dialogue Is it good? Is it bad ? one of the masterpieces of Diderot. What then is virtue? It is in one word: it is charitable. All that is useful to humanity is: everything that is harmful to humanity is evil, which is neither good nor harm anyone is indifferent, that I lie, I get drunk, or worse, that 'important, if these acts have no effect, without fatal extensions outside? And if in my lie, or my drunkenness, it leaves a good for someone, I'm being a liar or drunkard. The nature of Diderot saved the vices which degrade, poor, independent, generous, without lust and without platitudes, he is honest enough to come to a kind of morality with his instinct. It is based on respect, worship of nature, that is to say phenomena because it is only the collection. So can he help admiring, almost loving this great burst of natural energy, appetites, offered by the nephew of Rameau: he falls in agreement with him that "the important point is that you and I are, and we are you and me all go elsewhere as he can. "
Nature, finally, for Diderot, is science. He designed the method, directions, results. But the word nature is determined to Diderot in a very modern sense. He sees no more this inner nature that the seventeenth century especially studied, which Descartes believed life more secure and easier than knowledge of external nature. All his impulses, to him, from without, his philosophy and that of his time, told him that all his ideas came to him through his senses: it is natural that the external nature, and science that apply , are the object of his study. By the middle of the century, he announced, although recklessly, that the reign mathematics is finished, but he announced, by a sure divination that the reign of natural science will begin. Physiology, physics is that side of it is inviting young people, rather emphatically, but her gesture highlights quack ideas learned. Diderot with the relationship between philosophy and science seems to be reversed: the philosophy renounces impose its systems and expects their discoveries to extract a general conception of the universe. The philosophy of Diderot, in his characteristic parts is really a philosophy of nature: it derives from Leibniz, it is these principles of reason, less action, continuity, that the scientific study of inorganic and organic world and it constantly assumed, and it was he who first, before Helvetius, Holbach before, puts the man in nature, and reduces science legal natural sciences.
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