Synopsis
D'Alembert's manifesto for the Encyclopédie, mapping all human knowledge and championing reason and the diffusion of learning.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Public domainHuman knowledge forms a connected order traceable to reason and the senses, and spreading it advances human progress.
It frames the organization and public dissemination of knowledge as itself a political and emancipatory project.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Reading note
Read it as a programmatic preface, attentive to how classifying knowledge carries an implicit politics.
Best paired with
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France