ABSTRACT
Aram Vartanian examines concretely the huge debt the philosophers of the Enlightenment owed to the physics of Descartes, by unfolding the organic connection of Diderot's materialism to the scientific materialism of Descartes. Vartanian's main thesis is that Descartes' natural philosophy 'culminated in the ideology of Diderot and certain of his contemporaries'. Vartanian tends to overlook that the deep concern and skill of English utilitarianism in questions of social theory appealed to all philosophers who understood the barrenness of a revolution in philosophy without a revolution in social practice. For this reason, Holbach, Buffon, Condillac, and Diderot owed a great deal to the social currents derived from English constitutional theory. The application of philosophy to the needs of society qualitatively differentiated Diderot from Descartes and the seventeenth century evolution of mechanics. By striving to show the harmonic lineage from Descartes to Diderot, however, Vartanian creates distortions that are a disservice to the view of both Descartes and Diderot.
