Knowra Encyclopédie Encyclopédie A French-language reference work published in 28 volumes from 1751 to 1772, edited chiefly by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert. It gathered knowledge across arts and sciences while challenging established religious and political authority.
Jean le Rond d’Alembert : A French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher who co-edited the Encyclopédie and wrote its preliminary discourse. His preliminary discourse presented the work’s account of how human knowledge is organized.
Système figuré des connaissances humaines : A diagram in the Encyclopédie that arranged human knowledge into branches derived from faculties of the mind. It supplied the work’s explicit map of how its subjects related.
Louis de Jaucourt : A French physician and writer who contributed thousands of articles to the Encyclopédie. His extraordinary output helped keep the publication moving after d’Alembert withdrew.
French Enlightenment : An eighteenth-century intellectual movement in France that emphasized reason, criticism, and reform. The Encyclopédie became one of its most visible collective achievements.
John Mills : An English writer and agricultural improver who proposed a French encyclopedia project in the 1740s. His proposed translation of Ephraim Chambers’s encyclopedia helped initiate the project.
Cross-reference : A reference directing readers from one part of a work to another related part. Diderot used cross-references to connect articles and sometimes to imply critical arguments indirectly.
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach : A German-born French philosopher and writer associated with materialism and the Enlightenment. He contributed articles on natural history, chemistry, and related subjects.
Censorship in France : The regulation and suppression of publications by French royal and religious authorities, especially under the monarchy. Authorities suspended the work’s privilege and restricted its publication because of its perceived threats.
Ephraim Chambers : An English encyclopedist whose Cyclopaedia, published in 1728, connected articles through cross-references. The Encyclopédie began as a planned French translation of his Cyclopaedia.
Encyclopedic dictionary : A reference work that organizes information across multiple fields, usually through alphabetized entries. The Encyclopédie combined dictionary structure with an ambitious account of connected knowledge.
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