The protagonists of Diderot's dialogue, A and B, discuss the recently published Voyage autour du monde by the French navigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville (in 1771). B proposes to go through a so-called Supplement that calls into question some of the alleged evidence stated by Bougainville, the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the world. Two passages from this Supplement are embedded in the discussion: The Old Man's Farewell, and the long Interview of the Chaplain and Orou.
Philosophical Thoughts Written in 1746, these 62 thoughts circulated clandestinely before being condemned. They are the work of a freethinker of the Age of Enlightenment who wanted to subvert orthodox thought.
Diderot asks a man born blind to find out what idea the notion of symmetry or beauty awakens in him. It turns out that "beauty to a blind man is only a word, when it is separated from utility." All the answers of the blind man seem to be relative only to the senses at his disposal. The principal notions of metaphysics and morals are also conceived by him according to his sensible experience. Thus, there is no right or wrong, but people who guide the blind and others who steal from them.
