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L’article CERTITUDE de l’Encyclopédie commenté par un souscripteur anonyme

Jean Haechler and Françoise Jouffroy-Gauja

Abstracts

Comments on the Encyclopédie article CERTITUDE by an anonymous subscriber
An Anonymous subscriber to the Encyclopédie made numerous comments in the margins, including on the article CERTITUDE by the abbé de Prades. The ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’ added by Diderot are strongly critical, although in a veiled form, of the abbé’s very un-encyclopedic theses defending the authenticity of supernatural events ; he even attacks the author of the Pensées philosophiques ! The Breton subscriber’s notes (in the body of the article or in the margins) reveal a sarcastic enlightened mind and a knowledge of, for example, J. Craig’s probability calcultations. They also show that he had difficulty understanding Diderot’s tactical ambiguity and his necessary support for Prades, who was violently attacked by the Encyclopédie’s enemies. This in no way detracts from the high quality of the commentaries, which show that the work had provincial readers worthy of it.

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References

Electronic reference

Jean Haechler and Françoise Jouffroy-Gauja, “L’article CERTITUDE de l’Encyclopédie commenté par un souscripteur anonyme”Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie [Online], 29 | 2000, Online since 18 June 2006, connection on 29 March 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/rde/90; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/rde.90

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Copyright

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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