Original title Le Rêve de d’Alembert Language French Originally published 1830 | Country France Publication date 1830 | |
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D'Alembert’s Dream ( or The Dream of D'Alembert, French: Le Rêve de d'Alembert) is an ensemble of three philosophical dialogues authored by Denis Diderot in 1769, which first appeared in Grimm's Correspondance Littéraire in 1782, but was not published in its own right until 1830:
In this work, Diderot is at the zenith of his development of materialist theories. It is here that he introduces his theory on life and nature, indicating that matter is not fixed but that, on the contrary, subject to evolution. Each species in existence transforms itself and gives birth to a new species.
He would later create a special version for his patroness, Catherine II of Russia, replacing the certain character names.
Both Julie de Lespinasse and D’Alembert took poorly to being used as protagonists of the conversations.