Diderot: the 18th century religious moral

• Grant number: 20/13984-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2021
• End date: May 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Ethics
• Principal Investigator: Jacira de Freitas
• Grantee: Gustavo de Amorim Fernandez
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project in question aims to follow the thinking of the philosopher Denis Diderot, with regard to religiosity in the 18th century. Diderot, as a large part of the Enlightenment, saw religion as an obstacle to the advancement of the lights, that is, religion caused men to abandon their rational side, causing them to become alienated from the truths that come from reason and not from grace. .The main texts that I will use as bibliography will be: Supplement to Bougaiville's Journey. The Religious and Colloquium with Marechala. Both are authored by Diderot and have common themes, which would be the problems that circumscribe religion and how it prevents man from making use of its natural potentials, suffocating and condemning him to unhappiness. The supplement will be the main work, as it brilliantly embraces this theme, demonstrating how man was condemned by chaining himself to an irrational religious morality. The texts The Religious and Colloquium with the Marechala complement this Diderotian thought with primacy, since Diderot aims to develop a lay moral, he wants to point out that it is possible to live morally outside of religion, therefore, The Religious will show the cloister of women of monastic life and the Diderot Colloquium will demonstrate precisely this issue of secular morality, raising the question that if God did not exist, everything would be allowed.