Fredericks, Kathryn. “Visual and
Philosophical Spaces in l’Encyclopédie.” Dalhousie
French Studies, vol. 107, Dalhousie University, 2015, pp. 67–76. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26380180.
In this article, Fredericks explores the concept of “space” in the Encyclopédie; that is, space which is produced through culture, experiences, social interactions, imagination, logic, and more. More specifically, Fredericks looks into how geographical research in the 18th century contributed to the development of such space, claiming that geography is a space for knowledge and philosophy. To do so, she provides a brief history of geographical research (while indicating that there is a human element to geography), defines “space”, and provides a background of the Encyclopédie’s beginnings. She then applies the “space” theories to the Encyclopédie through Jaucourt’s welding of history and geography (giving biographies in geographical articles) and D’Alembert’s attempts to spatially represent all knowledge through his map (mappemonde) and tree of knowledge. In other words, the Encyclopédie was written spatially and also contains space within it, as it combines both the real and imaginary. Fredericks concludes by investigating the article “Géographie” (“Geography”) and how it serves as a metaphor for how the Encyclopédie operates: by showing the relationship between history and geography and how a human aspect as the center leads to the production of visual and philosophical space.
Basic Information
Country of Publication: Canada (Nova Scotia)
Language: English
Decade: 2010s
Main Classification: Philosophy, Space
Related Sources
*In Progress*
Notes
1. "Encyclopédie" is incorrectly unitalicized in both the citation title and in the article itself.
2. This article is somewhat advanced for those who do not have a background in understanding "space" in such a philosophical sense as Fredericks.
Updates
1/8/2021: Created page.