Interpreting Diderot’s ‘Philosophie de Chinois’: Limits of Enlightenment Freedom in Translating Chinese Philosophy

L'Encyclopédie, published in France between 1751 and 1772, is a monumental 35-volume work compiled by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, key figures of the French Enlightenment. Diderot’s entry on Philosophie des Chinois offers a rare Enlightenment perspective on East Asian thought, yet it presents challenges in translation, particularly in its distorted rendering of Chinese names, terms, and references. Our talk critically examines these difficulties and explores how Diderot’s work contributes to the legacy of Eurocentric Enlightenment perspectives on non-Western traditions. Central to our discussion is the paradox of freedom—while the Enlightenment championed liberty and knowledge, it remained constrained by its own cultural biases. Diderot’s engagement with Chinese philosophy reflects this tension, revealing both an expansion of intellectual horizons and the persistence of Western epistemological frameworks. We thus consider how Enlightenment freedom both enabled and restricted ways of knowing across cultural boundaries.