DIDEROT – POLITICAL THINKER

Abstract

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) didn’t write a political treatise and he hardly systematically presented his political ideas, but these do exist in his work and they can be brought together. Researchers have tried to do that in their theoretical articles and studies, as well as in thematic editions of Diderot’s political writings collected in a single volume, of which we already have two such editions in the 20th century ‒ one edited by Vernière (1963) and the second by Versini (1995). Diderot expressed his political ideas in the articles “Political Authority” and “Natural Law”. In the first part of this article two opposing approaches are considered on the question of whether Diderot is a political thinker or not and what his achievements are; then we are going to analyse the political context of his tale the Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville (1772/1935). The Supplément is rich with his main political ideas, such as: the relationship between nature and man, the difference between natural and civil law, the origin of power and question of social reform.