French Enlightenment
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The French Enlightenment, was the intellectual and cultural movement that flourished in 18th-century France, forming a central part of the Age of Enlightenment. The movement placed emphasis on reason
Montesquieu c. 1750
Voltaire c. 1720s
Denis Diderot in 1767
Although Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva, he is often considered a major figure of the French Enlightenment. (Portrait by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, 1753)
Encyclopédie
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The Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, better known as the Encyclopédie, was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later sup
Title page
Extract from the frontispiece of the Encyclopédie (1772). It was drawn by Charles-Nicolas Cochin and engraved by Bonaventure-Louis Prévost. The work is laden with symbolism: The figure in the center represents Truth, surrounded by bright light (the central symbol of the Enlightenment). Two other figures on the right, Reason and Philosophy, are tearing the veil from Truth.
Fig. 3: "Figurative system of human knowledge", the structure that the Encyclopédie organized knowledge into. It had three main branches: memory, reason, and imagination.