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2008
- ISIDORE Id: 10670/1.2259bc...
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Time Dummett Scepticism Antirealism Diderot MaterialismSujets proches
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Marian Hobson, « The Point and the Rearview Mirror: Diderot, or How to Represent Time », Archives de Philosophie, ID : 10670/1.2259bc...
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Both during his life and after his death, Diderot was accused of being illogical. Jean-Claude Bourdin refuses to call him a « sceptic » and suggests that the hesitations and questionings that have given rise to this epithet characterize in fact only his manner of writing, and not the content of his philosophy, which is materialist. However, these characteristics have a philosophical meaning which is not at all illogical : time is unreal, in the philosophical sense; we can never justify a statement about the past without understanding what there is in our present which justifies it; and our statements about the future are perpetually incomplete and hence always subject to revision. Thus, the « scepticism » of Diderot needs to be understood in the light of the work of Dummett and Bourdin and as an anti-realism.
