The Problem of Scientific Order Versus Alphabetical Order in the Encyclopédie

~Ihe Problem of Scientific OrderzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTS Versus Alphabetical Order in the Encyclopedic Hugh M. Davidson "L’empire des sciences et des arts est un monde eloigne du vulgaire. . . !’ Th is SENTENCE from the "Discours preliminaire” states the problem in the shortest possible way. As they look about them, d’Alembert and Diderot, the editors of the Encyclopedia-to-be, see on the one hand many bodies of technical knowledge, as yet un­ systematized in a satisfactory way and out of contact with com­ mon understanding, and on the other hand a public—or as they say, with a satirical touch, the reading, not the talking, public. The general aim and the first rule of the encyclopedic enterprise must be to close this gap, to bring knowledge and people together; all other and consequent rules have to do with devising a suitable means to this end. The means they choose, of course, is a dictio­ nary, i.e., a work composed according to the purely conventional order of the alphabet but called upon to reveal the purely logi­ cal order of thought in science and in art. This paradox and the ef­ fort to surmount it form the subject of most of my remarks, but, as I hope to show, the solution to the problem involves a second par­ adox, something like the near-death and renewal of an ancient ver­ bal discipline. I should add that my interest here lies in the design and spirit of the project: in what d’Alembert and Diderot sought to do rather than in what actually happened as the volumes of the Ency­ clopedic were constituted and published. I have decided to concen­ 33 Ir r a t io n a l is m in t h e Eig h t e e n t h Ce n t u r y trate on what the two editors said in a small number of documents where intentions and rationale appear in a more or less pure state: the jihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Prospectus (Diderot, 1750), the article "Art” (Diderot, 1751), the "Discours preliminaire” (d’Alembert, 1751), and the article "Encyclopedic” (Diderot, 1755).1 In order to see exactly what Diderot and d’Alembert wanted to do, we must remind ourselves of some things they take to be common to every discipline. Each one of them arises out of a con­ tact between man and nature, a contact that turns, under the stim­ ulus of human needs, into an activity designed to accomplish some end. To be more specific: (l) each one bears on a single object; (2) it involves the collection of data—either facts or rules—con­ cerning that object; and (3) it seeks the order in which the data may be most properly disposed. For example, grammar concerns (l) speech which has (2) been reduced to rules that (3) form a system. Diderot asserts that what is true of grammar is true of the other arts and sciences. No matter how diverse the objects in ques­ tion may be, no matter how widely his attention may range, he re­ turns finally to this single notion or model of technical discipline. Even the most important distinction of all, that between science and art, does not obliterate the common features; in fact, it ac­ centuates them. Si l’objet s’execute, la collection et la disposition technique des regies selon lesquelles il s’execute s’appellent art. Si l’objet est contemple seulement sous differentes faces, la collection et la disposition technique des observations relatives a cet objet s’appellent science’ , ainsi metaphysique est une science, et la morale est un art. Il en est de meme de la theologie et de la pyrotechnie.2 Collection, disposition*, we must understand these words in an ac­ tive sense which allows for the evolving state of any art or sci­ ence at any particular time. In some instances, what the Encyclope­ dists are talking about is not an existing science but a problem area, a distinct field in which someone is collecting and disposing data, or should be doing so. One of the factors, the data, varies, obvious­ ly, as to number, whereas the second, the order or arrangement, remains...