On "Encyclopédie"
New Books in Western European Studies
00:00
The Encyclopaedia Is a Response to a Rising Complexity
The encyclopaedia is both a contribution to that and a response to it. It almost seems like it's a response to rising complexity, there's no doubt about that. The word acceleration appears later in the eighteenth century as a way of describing what's happening. So they have a very fluid definition of knowledge, or, i guess, a kind of evolutionaryYes, i think that's true. They would be horrified if theEncyclopaedia were set in stone,. I think that would horrify them absolutely. And when you see that level, you may, in fact, be enhancing that level.
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