Diderot és a prisca sapientia: A régi bölcsesség körüli vita az Enciklopédiában

The article addresses Diderot’s views on prisca sapientia, expressed in several important articles in the history of philosophy in the Encyclopédie. Prisca sapientia or ancient wisdom is a Renaissance theory claiming that an original knowledge was given to mankind by God but was later lost. Thinkers like Pico della Mirandola, Ficino, and Patrizi believed that works like the Corpus hermeticum and the Chaldean Oracles contained original truths about the creator, the universe, and creatures. Several 17th-century scholars, among them Isaac Casaubon, Pierre Bayle, and Thomas Hyde, demonstrated that the above-mentioned writings were written during the common era by Christian Neoplatonists. Since then, the idea of prisca sapientia was questioned but persisted in certain intellectual circles. The article shows that Diderot, drawing on Brucker’s Historia critica philosophiae, is very critical on this theory, as well as on early modern syncretic philosophers attempting to revive it. He maintains, however, interest for genuine sources of the first philosophies, which had preceded the birth of the known Western civilization.