Preliminary Discourse To The Encyclopedia Of Diderot D Alembert

Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot D'Alembert

Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot

Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot expresses the hopes, dogmas, assumptions, and prejudices that have come to characterize the French Enlightenment. In this preface to the Encyclopedia, d'Alembert traces the history of intellectual progress from the Renaissance to 1751. Including a revision of Diderot's Prospectus and a list of contributors to the Encyclopedia, this edition, elegantly translated and introduced by Professor Richard Schwab, is one of the great works of the Enlightenment and an outstanding introduction to the philosophes.

The Discourse of Scholarly Communication

The Discourse of Scholarly Communication examines the place and purpose of modern scholarship and its dialectical relationship with the ethos of Enlightenment. Patrick Gamsby argues that while Enlightenment/enlightenment is often used in the mottos of numerous academic institutions, its historical, social, and philosophical elements are largely obscured. Using a theoretical lens, Gamsby revisits the ideals of the Enlightenment alongside the often-contradictory issues of disciplinary boundaries, access to research, academic labor in the production of scholarship (author, peer reviewer, editor, and translator), the interrelationship of form and content (lectures, textbooks, books, and essays), and the stewardship of scholarship in academic libraries and archives. It is ultimately argued that for the betterment of the scholarly communication ecosystem and the betterment of society, anti-Enlightenment rules of scholarship such as ‘publish or perish’ should be dispensed with in favor of the formulation of a New Enlightenment.