Evidence, example, and expe'rience in the eighteenth-century French essay

十八世纪法国文章中的证据、例子和经验

• 批准号: 2877345
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2877345
• 关键词: Evidence; example; expe; rience; eighteenth

Despite its increasing prevalence as a literary form in eighteenth-century France, the essay has received relatively little attention compared with other forms of writing. While the essay is widely understood as an experimental mode of writing concerned with personal experience and the spontaneous association of ideas, the ways in which Enlightenment thinkers employ this form to communicate their thought has not been sufficiently explored. What does a writer's use of the essai reveal about their understanding of the form and its implications? What is the value of individual experience compared with other types of evidence? Is there a particular form of evidence that is most suited to the essay and if so, what does this reveal about a writer's claims? This project will examine works by Enlightenment thinkers including Diderot, Montesquieu, and Rousseau to assess how these writers make use of the essay and employ different forms of evidence to construct their arguments, substantiate their assertions, and create an authorial persona. It aims to reveal the ways in which writers in France understood the essay and its epistemological implications and considers what this means for the essay's importance to the proliferation of writing known as the Enlightenment.Diderot's definition of 'Épreuve, Essai, Expérience' in the Encyclopédie demonstrates the interconnectedness - and often the synonymity - of the terminology of experience, experiment and the essai in eighteenth-century France. The essay's relationship to empiricism and experimental science has been traced to the work of Boyle and Locke and the influence of Montaigne and Bacon is well-documented. While there is extensive scholarship on the emergence of the British periodical essay tradition and the development of the essay in its modern form, recent work has tended to focus on nineteenth-century essayists. Although this provides useful context on the essay's characteristics, there remains limited research on the strategies, techniques, and implications of essay-writing in Enlightenment France.This project will investigate the use of evidence in essais by key Enlightenment thinkers, including Diderot's Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron, Montesquieu's Essai sur le goût, and Rousseau's Essai sur l'origine des langues. Scholars most often approach these essays in relation to the author's better-known or more influential works, rather than examining them in their own right. As a result, scholarship has not tended to focus on the significance of the essay form or the ways in which these writers use evidence to shape and substantiate their arguments.The project will consider lesser-known works such as Émilie du Châtelet's recently discovered Essai sur l'optique to assess whether women writers use the essay form in distinctive ways, including in response to academic prize contests, and to explore how these writers understood the requirements and potential of the essay form.My research will use individual essays as case studies to develop a thematic analysis that assesses and compares the different forms of evidence that appear in these texts. I will examine historical example, empirical evidence, personal experience or testimony, and anecdote to identify how they are used and to what effect. This project will take an interdisciplinary perspective by drawing together strands of literary, historical, and philosophical scholarship on Enlightenment thinkers in a way that gives due attention to an understudied aspect of their works and considers them alongside lesser-known essays of the period.

尽管散文作为一种文学形式在十八世纪的法国日益流行，但与其他写作形式相比，散文受到的关注相对较少，而散文被广泛理解为一种关注个人经历和思想自发联想的实验性写作方式。 ，启蒙思想家使用这种形式来传达他们的思想的方式尚未得到充分探索，作家对散文的使用揭示了他们对这种形式及其含义的理解与其他类型相比有何价值？有具体的证据吗？最适合这篇文章的证据形式，如果是这样，这揭示了作者的主张什么？该项目将审查包括狄德罗、孟德斯鸠和卢梭在内的启蒙思想家的作品，以评估这些作家如何利用这篇文章并运用这些内容？它旨在揭示法国作家理解这篇文章及其认识论含义的方式，并考虑这对法国作家意味着什么。狄德罗在《百科全书》中对“Épreuve、Essai、Expérience”的定义表明了 18 世纪法国“经验”、“实验”和“essai”这些术语的相互关联性，而且常常是同义词。这篇文章与经验主义和实验科学的关系可以追溯到波义耳和洛克的作品，以及蒙田和培根的影响尽管学术界对英国期刊散文传统的出现和散文现代形式的发展进行了广泛的研究，但最近的研究往往集中于十九世纪的散文家，尽管这为散文的特征提供了有用的背景。 ，关于启蒙法国论文写作的策略、技巧和含义的研究仍然有限。该项目将调查主要启蒙思想家在论文中使用证据的情况，包括狄德罗的《论法国》学者们通常将这些论文与作者更知名或更有影响力的作品联系起来，而不是单独研究它们。因此，学术界往往不关注论文形式的意义或写作方式。这些作家利用证据来塑造和该项目将考虑一些鲜为人知的作品，例如艾米莉·杜·沙特莱 (Émilie du Châtelet) 最近发现的《Essai sur l'optique》，以评估女性作家是否以独特的方式使用论文形式，包括回应学术奖项竞赛，并探讨这些作品如何作者了解论文形式的要求和潜力。我的研究将使用个别论文作为案例研究来开展主题分析，评估和比较这些文本中出现的不同形式的证据，我将研究历史例子、实证研究。该项目将以跨学科的视角，汇集有关启蒙思想家的文学、历史和哲学学术知识，并给予适当的关注。他们的作品中未被充分研究的一个方面，并将它们与那个时期鲜为人知的文章一起考虑。