Locke e il "Lockianesimo” nell’Encyclopedie : confronti e intersezioni

In the Discours préliminaire of the Encyclopédie D’Alembert does not hesitate to place Locke on the level of a «Newton of philosophy», as the inventor of a new metaphysics: «On peut dire qu’il créa la Métaphysique à peu-près comme Newton avoit créé the Physique» (Enc., I, p. xxvii). Metaphysics is conceived no longer as a Science of Being, but as a Physics of the ideas of the human mind. But this is not the only image that emerges from the kaleidoscope of figures, offered by the various contributions, such as the famous (and authoritative) one of the co-director. Undoubtedly, the representation of an essentially «Pyrrhonian» philosopher in regards to Religion and Theology prevails, intersecting with that image of the inspirer of the various materialisms that runs through the 17 volumes of the Dictionnaire raisonné. The comparison between these representations reveals the figure of a thinker who is not at all «moderate», or inspirer of the conservative Enlightenment (as claimed, for example, by J. I Israel in Radical Enlightenment), but rather that of the (masked) «supporter» of the more subversive fringes of the French Enlightenment.