L'année 1778 dans le Journal encyclopédique

Jacques Wagner : 1778 in the journal encyclopédique. The Journal encyclopédique represented a resolutely "economistic" ideology. Knowledge is linked to the needs of a society defined in terms of a market economy. There is on the one hand productive work, necessary in a world threatened by death because of the contradiction between human needs and natural scarcity, and the other property, alone able to guarantee the profitability of production. This conception of society, totally opposed to that of the Christian era, which was feudal, has two basic notions, history and the individual. Thus the J.E. looiks forward to a change in the means and relations of production and demands a redefinition of the works of the intellectual. In future men will be esteemed because of the political value of their work.Wagner Jacques. L'année 1778 dans le Journal encyclopédique. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°11, 1979. L'année 1778. pp. 257-268