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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Diderot,_Denis
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INFOTEXT
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1992-09-02
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1713-1784. French philosopher. He is closely
associated with the Enlightenment, the
European intellectual movement for social and
scientific progress, and was editor of the
Encyclopedie 1751-1780. An expanded and
politicized version of Ephriam Chamber`s
English encyclopedia of 1728, this work
exerted an enormous influence on contemporary
social thinking with its materialism and
anticlericalism. Its compilers were known as
Encyclopedistes. Diderot's materialism, most
articulately expressed in D'Alembert's Dream,
published after Diderot's death, sees the
natural world as nothing more than matter and
motion. His account of the origin and
development of life is purely mechanical.