The Anti-Philosophers: A Study of the Philosophes in Eighteenth-Century France

vi, 175 pp. "...analyzes the individual and collective achievements of the philosophes. ...discusses the careers of such men as Diderot, Voltaire, Fontenelle, 'Alembert, Helvetius, Rousseau, Condillac La Mettrie and Buffon with wit and clarity...shows that these men were not, on the whole, original philosophers, but rather men of letters who were passionately committed, as Diderot expressed it, "to changing the general way of thought'". ...In bringing philosophy and science down to earth, in translating them into a new, mundane outlook, the philosophes helped to determine the future course of Western civilization in the age of the French Revolution."--jacket