In the last post, we spoke of Voltaire's stance against the church and his history and philosophy when it came to the matter of religion. Today, we speak of Denis Diderot's.
Denis Diderot
Perhaps the French philosopher Diderot (1713-1784 CE) was considered the second greatest philosopher of the Enlightenment era in France after Voltaire, and perhaps he was the most important and influential in establishing the revolutionary trend against religion and its position in the state and society.
He went through a phase of religious commitment and was involved in preparing the first encyclopedia of arts, sciences, and emerging crafts, which documented the philosophers of the time and their intellectual and scientific contributions, criticizing religion, opposing the authority of the church, and doubting the miracles of Jesus (peace be upon him). This angered the government and religious authorities in France, leading to its prohibition.
Diderot studied philosophy at the Jesuit College and briefly worked in the church before studying law and deciding to become a writer in his early twenties. This angered his father and led him to disown his son, which had a profound impact on shaping Diderot's strong reaction and pushed him towards atheism.
Diderot's writings continued with explicit, sharp atheistic views that were hostile towards religion and religious institutions. This led the French authorities to arrest him for three months in 1749. He believed that all supernatural beliefs should be eradicated, regardless of the arguments or the authority they relied upon.
He saw this as the means to liberate humans from superstitions and slavery, and to open the doors of happiness wide for them. He famously said, "If we were to cut off 20 heads of religious fanaticism, new heads would sprout. Therefore, the matter must be decisively settled."
Diderot did not write a specific work on ethics, despite his desire to do so. This hesitation stemmed from his fear of failing to write an ethical work and inadvertently becoming a defender of evil, betraying virtue, and promoting vice. Nevertheless, Diderot strongly supported the doctrine of pleasure in ethics and was influenced by the ideas of Montaigne and Locke on ethics.
He argued that moral rules are not innate but acquired. He referred to a tribe in the Amazon who believed that one form of high virtue for them was to eat one's enemies, and therefore, they consumed human flesh without remorse.
Diderot believes that those who truly know themselves have advanced in understanding others. He argues that there is no virtue strange to the wicked or vice strange to the virtuous. He sees that the act of doing good or evil is linked to the physiological makeup of humans. He believes that humans do not act according to pure or non-material principles, but rather through motivations, influences, desires, instincts, and so on.
Diderot believed that a virtuous individual is someone who surrenders to their natural emotions, which drive them towards intimate friendship and parental love. He believed that a person with an evil spirit is a stubborn and arrogant rebel who pursues selfish desires and self-gratification against what is natural and true.
Diderot was influenced by the speeches of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which he produced in the 1750s. He developed an ideal model of natural virtue and social equality, which he found to be more developed in simple and rural people who lived modestly and closely connected to each other.
He also expressed his interest in the societal power of commerce, as a means to unify people in virtuous and prosperous systems of governance. He criticized commercial greed as a cause of social violence and political injustice. Diderot believed in the centrality of human beings and that the existence of humans is what gives importance to the existence of other beings.
Diderot's writings influenced many philosophers such as Hegel and Marx. In his works, he criticized the European imperial slave system that oppressed Africans and called for democracy and the distribution of power from top to bottom. He advocated for the abolition of the death penalty, defended the decentralization of political power, and rejected the ideas that some embraced regarding race and slavery.
He argued against the notion that races are biologically and culturally distinct, stating that humanity shares the same genes and that differences lie in degrees rather than in kind.
Next is Holbach and the complete eradication of religion in detail.
Previous Parts
A Philosophical Journey (1): Moralphobia
A Philosophical Journey (2): How Does The Moral Struggle Manifest In Islam?
A Philosophical Journey (3): Ethics In The Space Of The Greeks And The Darkness Of The Middle Ages
A Philosophical Journey (4): Western View Of Ethics In The Renaissance
A Philosophical Journey (5): Conflict of Ethics and the Age of Enlightenment
A Philosophical Journey (6): The Age of Enlightenment and the Tendencies of the Revolution of Reason.
A Philosophical Journey (7): The Age of Enlightenment and the Revolt Against Religion - Voltaire's Edition