Philosophe

Name given in the 18th c. to writers and thinkers sympathetic to Enlightenment values. The word was used with both negative and positive connotations. In the Encyclopédie, the standard-bearer of the cause, the philosophe is glowingly defined in the article of that name as not only a scrupulous observer and rational thinker, but ‘un honnête homme qui veut plaire et se rendre utile’.

In the second half of the century the philosophes came to be an influential party, who were able, under the leadership of d'Alembert, to establish a powerful presence in the Académie Française. Seen by their opponents as a sinister faction, they were the object of many attacks, including J.-N. Moreau's pamphlet against the Cacouacs and Palissot de Montenoy's satirical comedy Les Philosophes, in which Diderot and other leading members of the party are lampooned. The word philosophie often has a cognate meaning in the 18th c.

[Peter France]