LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Denis Diderot
built 633 days ago
Denis Diderot was the most prominent of the French Encyclopedists. He was educated by the Jesuits, and, refusing to enter one of the learned professions, was turned adrift by his father and came to Paris, where he lived from hand to mouth for a time. Gradually... he became recognized as one of the most powerful writers of the day. His first independent work was the Essai sur le merite et la vertu (1745). As one of the editors of the Dictionnaire de medecine (6 vols., Paris, 1746), he gained valuable experience in encyclopedic system. His Pensees philosophiques (The Hague, 1746), in which he attacked both atheism and the received Christianity, was burned by order of the Parliament of Paris.
Source:
Denis Diderot is one of the towering figures of the 18th century Enlightenment period, thanks largely to his editorship of the Encylopédie, one of the great attempts to catalog human knowledge. A prolific writer and talented talker, Diderot moved away from his early Jesuit training to an atheistic materialism, and had a great influence on the intellectual and political development in pre-revolution France. Diderot never got rich (for ready cash he sold his private library to the empress of Russia, Catherine the Great), but his years working on the Encyclopédie made him famous, and his friends included Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire.
Source:
Denis Diderot was born at Langres in eastern France in 1713, the son of a master cutler. He was originally destined for the Church but rebelled and persuaded his father to allow him to complete his education in Paris, where he graduated in 1732. For ten years Diderot was nominally a law student, but actually led a precarious bohemian but studious existence, eked out with tutoring, hack-writing and translating. His original writing began in 1746 with a number of scientific works setting out the materialist philosophy which he was to hold throughout his life. Along with his editorship of the Encyclopédie (1747-73), he wrote works on mathematics, medicine, the life sciences, economics, drama and painting, two plays and a novel, as well as his Salons (1759-81). His political writings were mainly composed around 1774 for Catherine II, at whose invitation he went to St. Petersburg.
Source:
On Oct. 15, 1713, Denis Diderot was born in Langres, Compagne, into a family of cutlers, whose bourgeois traditions went back to the late Middle Ages. As a child, Denis was considered a brilliant student by his Jesuit teachers, and it was decided that he should enter the clergy. In 1726 he enrolled in the Jesuit college of Louis-le-Grand and probably later attended the Jansenist Collège d'Harcourt. In 1732 he earned a master of arts degree in philosophy. He then abandoned the clergy as a career and decided to study law. His legal training... was short-lived.
Source:
Denis Diderot was born in 1713, in Langres, France. He first attended a Jesuit school and went to Paris in 1734, where he devoted himself to humanistic studies. Until 1746, Diderot earned his living as a private tutor, contract writer, and translator. From 1751 until 1780, Diderot worked with 200 colleagues on the 35 volume "Encyclopédie." In 1757, the Conseil du Roi forbid continued work on the encyclopedia. Diderot ... had later volumes printed secretly.
Source:
On October 15, 1713, Denis Diderot was born in Langres, Compagne, France, one of Didier and Angelique Diderot's seven children. His father was a cutler (a maker of cutting tools). As a child Denis was considered a brilliant student by his teachers, and it was decided that he should serve the church. In 1726 he enrolled in the Jesuit (Catholic order of priests devoted to educational work) college of Louis-le-Grand and probably later attended the Jansenist Collège d'Harcourt. In 1732 he earned a master's in philosophy (the study of the universe and man's place in it).
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Denis Diderot