WHAT IS ENCYCLOPEDISM? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The enciclopedismo was an intellectual movement of Western philosophy whose set of ideological and philosophical principles were promulgated by thinkers called encyclopedists.

The encyclopedia was written and published in the course of the second half of the 18th century, with the contribution of many renowned writers, the most illustrious being Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783).

The appearance of encyclopedism takes its name from The Encyclopedia or, reasoned dictionary of arts, sciences and trades, which was published between 1751 and 1772.

The book consists of 17 volumes of text to which 11 plates are added. In turn, between 1776 and 1780 another 7 volumes of supplements were added, divided into 4 of text, 1 of plates and 2 of indexes. In total, The Encyclopedia comprises some 28 volumes, at least in its initial stage of production.

However, prior to this enlightened project, there were previous initiatives. For its part, France was where the encyclopedic initiative was most successful thanks to the support of figures of the nobility, such as Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764), who counterbalanced the promoters of its censorship, among which was the government. and the clergy.

Thus, the main reason for the opposition was in the revolutionary character of the enlightened ideas. In this way, encyclopedism was within the framework of the illustration where its concepts clashed directly with the religion and the French monarchy of its time.

For their part, the encyclopedists had as their main purpose the compilation and dissemination of knowledge to combat ignorance. The main objective was to undermine the foundations of the tyranny imposed through institutionalized faith and absolutism. In this sense, the principle of authority was questioned.

With encyclopedism, intellectual feats of similar magnitude were carried out in later years, in a multitude of languages ​​and countries. Efforts were also redoubled to update indexed entries and to make encyclopedias reach more people.

To this end, it was necessary to require a greater number of specialists. In more recent times, technology was responsible for renewing the spirit and essence with which encyclopedism was conceived.

Background of encyclopedism

The first encyclopedia was not French nor did it emerge in the 18th century, but has remote origins dating back to Pliny the Elder with his Natural History, in Ancient Rome.

The Middle Ages saw similar efforts between Arabs and Byzantines; even the Chinese had done the same during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). In Europe, encyclopedic works were published between the 16th and 17th centuries, under the influence of the Renaissance and classical ideas.

However, none of these precursors had the impact of the Cyclopaedia, which came out in 1728 and was made by the Englishman Ephraim Chambers (1680-1740).

In this way, the first modern encyclopedia was Anglo-Saxon and published in other languages ​​until the French thought about translating it into their language. However, it was Diderot who decided to go further and make this project a true compilation of all the existing knowledge of his time, with original content.

Ideological framework

As mentioned, encyclopedism has a close relationship with the Age of Enlightenment and therefore with the illustration. Fully valid for French encyclopedism as well as for English encyclopedism, both of which followed in Chambers' footsteps.

In return the encyclopedia receives the ideological nourishment from Francophone philosophy, which revives its appreciation for the worldviews of Greece and Rome during their years of political splendor.

Encyclopedism stood out above all for abiding by a fundamental ideological precept: secularism.

In this sense, knowledge had to be totally independent of the scholasticism prevailing in past times, so the contents of the encyclopedia would not be designed according to particular religious doctrines but according to universal knowledge that abides by facts verified by observation.

Consequently, it can be said that encyclopedism was an epistemological and philosophical movement and not a theological one.

As reason prevails over faith, the facts have more relevance than personal beliefs or religious confessions, which lend themselves to subjectivities and impositions that are usually implemented by powerful sectors that do not always know what they are doing.

Knowledge, in this way, is disseminated and written by those who really know its structure.

goals

The fundamental goal of encyclopedism, regardless of its original state in England or its modernized version in France, was to bring together all possible knowledge in its multiple volumes.

To this end, an inventory was made of how much was known at that time, that is, in the 18th century. The idea was to obtain all that knowledge and to pass it on to future generations, so that it could be used in the future.

Therefore, the compilation of knowledge in the encyclopedia was, for Diderot himself, a way of making people more cultured, of providing them with education, so that their enlightened state gives them virtue and consequently happiness.

To this it is worth adding that encyclopedism responded to the needs of its time. If the encyclopedists sought the happiness of men, it was because there was an awareness that the monarchical state did not provide it.

According to ideologists, the creation of an encyclopedia served to disseminate that set of ideas that were the target of governmental and ecclesiastical censorship, among them those related to the abolition of slavery or equality among men.

In this way, and according to the above, the characteristics of encyclopedism can be summarized:

• Compile all the possible knowledge that has been known to date, in a systematic and orderly way, in different branches of knowledge.
• Disseminate knowledge to the masses, so that they do the same with the generations that come, and these with those that follow, because there is no useless knowledge.
• Educate the population so that it acquires civil virtues from which happiness is achieved and its state of ignorance, barbarism and submission is abandoned.
• Breaking down the barriers of political and religious censorship, which prevented certain knowledge from being publicly disclosed as being revolutionary, subversive, sinful or contrary to the interests of the absolutist monarchy and the church.
• Publicize the work and thoughts of those authors who were commonly censored and persecuted by the established regime.

Encyclopedia data

The use of reason and not of faith

Attached to the principles of the Enlightenment, the encyclopedists are rationalists, so the entries in their encyclopedia explain nature ignoring the theological or religious implications that used to prevail in medieval scholasticism.

Presence of a secular ideology

Hand in hand with rationalism, secularism implied that encyclopedism was not to do religious proselytism, but to be a source of knowledge that was written by philosophers and scientists, not by clergymen.

This knowledge, therefore, is not canonical or immovable like the Bible, quite the contrary; lends itself to updates incorporating recent inventions and discoveries in science and technology.

Revolutionary spirit

Encyclopedism brought with it ideas that displeased monarchs and priests, as these were a challenge to the existing system, which could be jeopardized if it fell into the hands of the masses.

This is so because the encyclopedists were ideologues and thinkers committed to the cause of the Enlightenment, in which rights were proclaimed and arguments that at that time were believed inconceivable were used.

Prolific in entries

To be exact, the encyclopedia de France had 75,000 entries, of which 44,000 were main, 28,000 were secondary, and 2,500 were illustration indexes.

The verbal count amounts to the astronomical figure of 20 million words spilled in its 18,000 pages that are contained in its 17 volumes of articles. That is much more than Chambers could have imagined.

Definitions systematic

The knowledge disseminated by encyclopedism was systematically ordered, according to the alphabet and the area in question. One of its pages, in fact, has a complete scheme in which all human knowledge is organized.

Encyclopedia authors

The authors of the encyclopedia were approximately 150 authors. The Encyclopedism was a massive and multidisciplinary work. Among those writers were Diderot and d'Alembert, who were also its editors.

Others who participated in this endeavor were Rousseau, Montesquieu and Voltaire. It should be noted that the encyclopaedists had differences of opinion, but not of intellectual intentions, regarding the elaboration of this colossal project.

It is known so far that the French encyclopaedist with the most written entries for The Encyclopedia was Louis de Jaucourt (1704-1779), with 17,288 articles.

Many of the authors who were within the encyclopedism had no interest in changing the delicate situation that France was going through.

However, The Encyclopedia as such did achieve that goal, as it was an important ideological foundation that served the French Revolution.

In sum, encyclopedism was the pinnacle of the Enlightenment and its usefulness is compared to that of Wikipedia today, whose philosophy is one in which knowledge is free.

References

1. Aguado de Seidner, Siang (2010). Encyclopedism. Guatemala City, Guatemala: Francisco Marroquín University. Recovered from newmedia.ufm.edu.
2. Blom, Philipp (2005). Enlightening the world: Encyclopédie, the book that changed the course of history. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
3. Burke, Peter (2000). A social history of knowledge: from Gutenberg to Diderot. Malden: Blackwell Publishers Inc.
4. Donato, Clorinda and Maniquis, Robert M. (1992). The Encyclopédie and the Age of Revolution. Boston: GK Hall.
5. Goldie, Mark and Wokler, Robert (2016). The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6. Lough, John (1971). The Encyclopédie. New York: D. McKay.
7. Magee, Bryan (1998). The Story of Philosophy. New York: DK Publishing, Inc.
8. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali (No year). History and philosophy of science; Century of reason; The Encyclopedists - The Enlightenment. Cali, Colombia, PUJ, Department of Humanities. Recovered from pioneros.puj.edu.co.