Jacques-André Naigeon

Jacques -André Naigeon ( born July 15, 1738 in Paris, † February 28, 1810 in Paris) was a French writer, journalist, philosopher of the late Enlightenment and encyclopedist.

Life and work

Jacques -André Naigeon had first tried as a visual artist in the areas of drawing, painting and sculpture. He became his admirers, disciples and imitators through his acquaintance with Denis Diderot. La Harpe, the Naigeon did not like, referred to him as the monkey Diderot which assumes the tone and manners in the course of the conversation.

Naigeon frequented the house Baron Holbach, who appointed him as secretary to the spread clandestine atheist writings. In particular, it was Naigeons task to edit the writings Holbach and edit. Holbach was concerned for his safety and therefore never had their own handwritten texts as a master of the house. As Kopist acted the brother Naigeons, a checker provisions of Sedan, of the manuscripts Holbach wrote in his 6 -month annual leave to terms. Published writings were the holbachschen anonymously or under the pseudonym of Mirabaud feu.

He worked on the Encyclopédie, which was written and organized by Denis Diderot and Jean Baptiste le Rond d' Alembert and others.

Relatively late Naigeon published his own works, in which he boldly anschrieb in the succession of his idols against dogmas, religious rites and the abuse of power by religious institutions. Naigeon was representative of a radical atheism of, in consequence of further as his models, a religion of nature, providence, the existence of a God, some kind of higher moral authority, the existence and immortality of the soul refused.

Entrusted with the publication of the philosophical part of the Encyclopédie méthodique Naigeon championed the ideas of fatalism, materialism and atheism, mainly in the items to Anthony Collins, Tommaso Campanella, Giulio Cesare Vanini and Curé Jean Meslier. Naigeon was elected in 1795 a member of the Institut de France. He behaved more passively in the meetings of the Académie. Naigeon came in his last years of life in illness, depression and financial hardships. So he was forced to sell his most widely known and built over decades library far below market value.

Naigeon became the first editor, compiler and commentator of Diderot's work and he thus became his first executor. So he published in 1798 posthumously an incomplete edition of Diderot's works and an appreciation of his oeuvre.

Works (selection)

• Le militaire filosophe, ou sur la religion difficultés proposées au RP Malebranche, prêtre de l' oratoire, par un ancien officier, without printer, Londres ( Paris), 1768, 8 °, 200 pp.
• Dictionnaire de philosophie ancienne et moderne, 1791
• Mémoire sur la vie et les oeuvres de Diderot, published posthumously in 1832

Naigeon published several works of Holbach, Diderot and other enlightened or ancient writers:

• Nicolas Freret: Lettre de Thrasibule à Leucippe. Ouvrage Posthumous de M. F. Londres ( Paris) no date (ca. 1768), 12 °, 252 pp.
• Baron Paul Heinrich Dietrich von Holbach. Opinions Des Anciens Sur Les Juifs, without a printer, without place, 1769, 8 ​​°, 2 parts, (2), 127, ( 3), 129-238 pp.
• Baron Paul Heinrich Dietrich von Holbach: Essai sur les prejuges, ou de l' influence the opinions sur les mœurs et sur ​​le bonheur des Hommes. Ouvrage contenant l' Apologie de la philosophie par Mr DM without printer, London ( Paris ), 12 °, (2), 394 pp.
• Collection of Moralistes Anciens. Didot, Paris, 1782.3 volumes in 12 °
• Oeuvres de Sénèque, traduites en françois par LA GRANGE; avec des notes de critique d' histoire et de littérature ( Naigeon ). J. J. Smits et Cie, Paris, 1795, 6 volumes in 8 °
• Oeuvres de Denis Diderot, Desray and Deter Ville, Paris, 1798, 15 volumes in 8 °