An Interdisciplinary Study on the Persuasive Discourse in Scientific Theories of the Encyclopedie

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23520104
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: History of thought
• Research Institution: Aoyama Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: IDA Hisashi 青山学院大学, 文学部, 教授 (10339517)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-28 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 十八世紀 / 百科全書 / 科学史 / ディドロ / ダランベール / 説得 / パラダイム / 読者

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study, forcusing on the competitive relations of discourses in the scientific articles of the Encyclopedie, has tried to clarify the role of persuasive discourses which contribute to the formation of the apparently objective history of science. As a result, the following points became clear. First, in the articles including the ones written by the mathematician D’Alembert, we can find comparative deliberations over new and old scientific opinions based on innumerous amount of texts cited from the Cyclopaedia of Chambers or many other precedent works and a historiography depicting paradigm changes governed by the ideology of the Enlightenment. It was also confirmed that the editors Diderot and D’Alembert sustained, each in their domain, the philosophy of progress which pursued free development of arts and sciences as ideal, and entrusted the intellectual progress of the human being to the augmentation of public readers of the Encyclopedie.

Free Research Field

18世紀フランス思想・文学