Abstract

Pomeau has condensed a lot of material for this pocket-size introduction to the life and works of Diderot, which he has attempted to simplify by providing parallel classifications of the excerpts from Diderot's works with his own presentation of Diderot's philosophy. These divisions are entitled: the Adventure of Diderot's thought, On Nature, On Man, Morality, Aesthetics, Politics, and the Contemporary Import of Diderot's Philosophie. Pomeau, a Voltaire scholar, displays a knowledge of the intellectual history of the period and a wide acquaintance with his immediate material. His selections are beautifully chosen, for they provide a generous survey of Diderot's work, including even a short passage from the most recently published marginalia of Hemsterhuis. This sort of presentation cannot but entice the beginner to further examination, for the passages range from the most poignant to the most witty Yet there is matter to frustrate the serious beginner; the passages are not dated, nor are they identified by work in the index. Pomeau engages in gratuitous psychologizing in his exposition of Diderot's life, and has made a blatant error in attributing to Diderot the authorship of the article "Encyclopédie." These shortcomings unfortunately mar a text which contains excellent analyses of the evolution of Diderot's religious and biological thought.—C. M. R.