This disharmony played an important role in the later development of French philosophy. So, thank you to Rousseau, thank you to the theory of social contract, thank you to the author of the origins of inequality, who provided us with a clear understanding of the many problems in the construction of our current social system today. Otherwise, we would have been immersed in our existing social system, thinking that it is the best, but in fact it is not.

We have introduced to you only three of the Enlightenment movements in France so far: Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau. I specifically named Rousseau and spent a lot of time introducing his ideas. I also hope that by understanding Rousseau's ideas, you can better understand the essence of French thought.

That is to say, when we talk about the French Enlightenment today, we understand French philosophy from a philosophical perspective, mainly through the discourse of philosophy.

Next, we will introduce Diderot's philosophy, especially his materialist ideas, which basically continue the simple materialist concept that began with Montesquieu. Of course, when we talk about the philosophy of materialism, there are still some people we haven't mentioned, such as Latin American philosophers, and even some other philosophers who are not as influential as them. However, they all have a common feature, which is to adopt a simple materialist standpoint to make regulations or interpretations on the development of society and human beings themselves.

Speaking of Diderot, we can simply say that as a spiritual leader of the Encyclopaedia movement, he was both the editor in chief and the actual organizer of the Encyclopaedia.

The book 'Encyclopedia' is really important. When we talk about the intellectual movement today, the French Enlightenment mainly talked about 'Encyclopedia'. Why talk about the Encyclopedia?

It is because of the Encyclopedia that he is a true thinker with a program, a team, a common ideal, and a common ideological plan.

Rousseau does not belong to the Encyclopaedia school. Although he wrote articles for the Encyclopaedia, his ideas are generally not included in the Encyclopaedia school. The Encyclopedia school mainly talks about some thinkers led by Diderot, including people like Montesquieu, Voltaire, as we mentioned earlier, such as Lamateli, and so on.

In fact, the Encyclopaedia school of the French has affected the ideological level of the whole later society, and it is more than a philosophical school. In our philosophical community, we generally do not consider the Encyclopaedia school as an important faction in the history of philosophy. However, in the history of thought, the Encyclopaedia school plays a very important role.

Because it was actually the beginning of an entire era, it influenced an era, and throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the cultural development of Europe was influenced by the Encyclopaedia school.

So, we can see that there are over 160 contributors to the Encyclopedia, making it a fairly large knowledge team. Diderot's starting point for publishing Encyclopedia is to publish the set of Encyclopedia that the British asked him to edit. You can see that the French are influenced by the British, and he also shows that the British took the lead in the first place. They only translated English books.

However, in the process of translating British books, they were very unhappy and dissatisfied. The number of volumes compiled by British people was small and few, and many of the contents did not actually cover the field of knowledge at that time. Therefore, they decided how to compile a new set, which formed their later Encyclopedia school. Diderot himself wrote more than 1000 entries for Encyclopedia, which involved very complicated contents.

It can be said that the Encyclopedia not only created Diderot, but also shaped a school of thought.

It is said that Diderot was created to write these articles. He can be said to have acquired a lot of new knowledge and learned a lot, as well as some knowledge that he did not understand in the past. Some articles are very difficult to write, especially those related to craftsmanship.

Because at that time, technology had not yet emerged, and people had diverse understandings of "technology". Because in the 18th century, craft theory was a relatively backward theory, and people only knew about craft technology. For example, as we mentioned earlier about metallurgy, even now it is no longer a process. In fact, process theory has already penetrated into the manufacturing industry at that time, and traditional manufacturing and manufacturing industries have also entered people's understanding of the world.

Because artcrafts, which are man-made, are called crafts. Anything that is artificial belongs to the category of craftsmanship. As long as it is an artificial product, artcrafts are craft products, and such craft products are human made products.

art， It is an art form, and crafts refer to things that are manufactured. So, artcrafts are called handicrafts, which actually involve how people combine their understanding of the world with our actual functions to create products. So, the understanding of craftsmanship is a very broad concept.

However, in reality, few people have made theoretical constructions about the craftsmanship itself. So, Diderot wrote entries in this area, which can be said to have opened up many new fields. Diderot can be said to have spent his entire life working for the Encyclopedia, until the first volume of the book was officially published in 1751.

After publication, the result was subjected to official encirclement. Why?

It is quite challenging for intellectuals to write encyclopedias, as there have always been such activities in history. During the Kangxi era, we had to compile the Complete Library of Four Branches. The compilation of the Complete Library of Four Branches during the Kangxi era was determined by the government, and only officially designated personnel were able to compile it. And encyclopedic scholarship is not originally the responsibility of intellectuals, it is written by intellectuals. This is firstly a challenge, this is innovation, this is the first.

The second one is the content covered in the Encyclopedia, which contains quite a few viewpoints that challenge the political system, ideological culture, and traditions of the time. So, after the first volume was published, it caused a great response and rebound.

So, after the publication of the second volume, the National Assembly ordered a ban on the publication of the book, so even D'Alembert resigned as editor in chief, and he just couldn't do it anymore. The pressure was too great to continue, and in the end, Diderot insisted on completing the task.

So, the total publication of the book was 35 volumes, and it was not until 1780 that all of them were published. His first volume was published in 1751, and the last volume was published in 1780, almost 30 years before the entire book was published. This book is priced very high for such a large quantity, but the print run of each volume exceeds 4000 copies, which is quite high.

In the cultural tradition of Europe at that time, the printing of every book was done at one's own expense. All cultural books in Europe were paid for by the publisher, who then printed and published them for you. What is the general publication volume?

Generally, only 500 copies are published. Why do many books feel like they have been printed multiple times? This concept is very powerful for us, and it's actually normal because 500 of them were sold quickly.

Then he must go through reprinting before he can continuously increase its circulation. So, reprinting is very common, but for encyclopedias like this, 4000 copies are published every time they are printed, which is quite high.

In today's publishing industry in China, our academic books have 3000 copies guaranteed. You pay the printing and publishing fees to the publishing house, with each book costing 100000 words and calculated at 10000 yuan. For a book worth 200000 yuan, you pay the publishing house 20000 yuan or even higher. Usually he prints 3000 copies for you, so many of our books now do not include printing times.

So almost no copies were printed. In the past, there used to be copies, but now there are none. Why?

Because our printing volume is not large, in today's era, our academic books have 3000 copies, and best-selling books can print up to 10000 copies, which is considered very high. So, you can imagine that if we can print 200000 copies of a book now, it is truly a bestseller. Those who can print 200000 copies are the kind of social stars, literary stars, movie stars, whose books can print hundreds of thousands of copies, which is impossible for academic books. If an academic book prints 200000 copies, it cannot be an academic book because our country's academia has not yet reached this level of popularity.

So, in general, the best academic books are only over 10000 copies. So, in the 18th century, a book could be printed in 4000 copies, which was already a high printing volume.

Gradually, the social impact of this book is very strong. Diderot, as the editor in chief of this book, was not only revered but also subjected to significant pressure. It should be said that his editing of this book has made a greater contribution to us in the future than the philosophical theories he provided, so it is no longer important what theory he proposed.

We remember Diderot not because he was a materialist philosopher, but because he edited a set of books. Who is Diderot today?

It is the editor in chief of the Encyclopedia, not that Diderot was a philosopher of French materialism, which is a landmark achievement.

If a person can do such a thing in their lifetime, so that future generations can remember them, I think it's not in vain to come into this world again. Our scholars are all working hard for this job now; Our job is not to make people remember us, our job is for future generations, to know that this person has existed in history.