Diderot's Holism

The analysis of Diderot's philosophy carried out in this book reveals that Diderot was a far cry from the mechanistic materialism sometimes attributed to him and to the 18th century French materialists in general. On the contrary, on the basis of contemporary medical, physiological and biological theories, Diderot developed holistic views according to which living organisms are integrated wholes which are not explainable by the laws governing the behaviour of their parts. The study also examines anti-reductionist themes in Diderot's epistemology and in his moral philosophy, and relates these themes to his aesthetic theories. It thus provides a comprehensive view of Diderot's philosophy as a whole, which calls into question simplified generalizations about the nature of the French Enlightenment.