Where did the Encyclopedia come from?Who (which people) wrote it and what is it's signifigance?

Answer 1

You are probably asking about the French Encyclopédie published in France between 1751 and 1766 (and later supplements and revisions).

You can listen to a radio programme about it by follwing this link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20061026.shtml

It was edited by Denis Diderot, Many of the most noted figures of the French enlightenment contributed to the work including Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu.The single greatest contributor was Louis de Jaucourt who wrote 17,266 articles, or about 8 per day between 1759 and 1765.

The writers of the encyclopedia saw it as a vehicle to covertly destroy superstitions while overtly providing access to human knowledge. It was a quintessential summary of thought and belief of the Enlightenment. In ancien régime France it caused a storm of controversy, due mostly to its tone of religious tolerance. The encyclopedia praised Protestant thinkers and challenged Catholic dogma, and classified religion as a branch of philosophy, not as the ultimate source of knowledge and moral advice.

The Encyclopédie played an important role in the intellectual ferment leading to the French Revolution. "No encyclopaedia perhaps has been of such political importance, or has occupied so conspicuous a place in the civil and literary history of its century. It sought not only to give information, but to guide opinion," wrote the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.

Answer 2

I've seen this question many times. I've thought of this question many time, too. You do have a point. If there is a God then something must have created him. Because you can't just "poof" out of nowhere, and have the power to create and such. But then something must have created his creator and so forth. So it doesn't seem like it would be possible to exist. On the other hand, scientist have created the "Big Bang" theory on how the earth was create. Or Darwin and his Evolution from the apes. Something had to have created the apes. In fact if I am correct Darwin before he died took back his theory. So I have heard. Then the "Big Bang" theory. How was the rocks or planets created that formed the earth? Once again, for them to just "poof" from out of nowhere doesn't seem logical. This is the life question, that seems that no living person can figure out with it all making sense. And having all tied ends.

Answer 3

Although Greek philosopher Aristotle is sometimes referred to as the “father of encyclopedias” because of the wide range of subjects in his works and his attempts to summarize existing knowledge, the first encyclopedia is said to have been compiled in the 4th century bc by Greek philosopher Speusippus, a disciple of Greek philosopher Plato. However, no remnant of Speusippus's work remains. The first Roman encyclopedist was Marcus Terentius Varro. His encyclopedia of the liberal arts was entitled Disciplinae (The Disciplines, 30 bc). It had nine books, one each for grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astrology, music, medicine, and architecture. None of the books has survived.

Answer 4

The first encyclopedia was written by Diderot, an 18th century French savant. He wrote it. In those days, they imagined that individuals could encompass all knowledge (or that the knowledge of the day was so small). In my field of "science," the Swedish chemist Jon Jakob Berzelius wrote a "Jahresbericht" (yearly report) from 1848-1852 about everything that had appeared in science in that year. After 1852, he had to leave off.

Later there was the encyclopedia brittanica. This was to be a universal book of learning, written by all qualified scholars. I myself am proud that I wrote articles for the "Encyclopedia of Modern Plastics." To the extent that anyone learned about plastics from those books, I am proud to have explained to the best of my ability.

Answer 5

Oh my god, this can't be a real question. Sweety....dink, dink, dink (me taping on the monitor) does your mommy know you are using her computer.

Answer 6

Here is Wikipedias far more eloquent answer--

"The word encyclopedia comes from the Classical Greek "ἐγκύκλια παιδεία" (pronounced "enkyklia paideia"), literally, a "[well-]rounded education," meaning "a general knowledge." Though the notion of a compendium of knowledge dates back thousands of years, the term was first used in 1541 in the title of a book by Joachimus Fortius Ringelbergius, Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissima kyklopaideia (Basel, 1541). The word encyclopaedia was first used as a noun by the Croatian encyclopedist Pavao Skalić in the title of his book, Encyclopaedia seu orbis disciplinarum tam sacrarum quam prophanarum epistemon (Encyclopaedia, or Knowledge of the World of Disciplines, Basel, 1559).

Several encyclopedias have names that include the suffix -p(a)edia, e.g., Banglapedia (on matters relevant for Bengal).


Characteristics
The encyclopedia as we recognize it today was developed from the dictionary in the 18th century. A dictionary primarily focuses on words and their definitions, and typically provides limited information, analysis, or background for the word defined. While it may offer a definition, it may leave the reader still lacking in understanding the meaning or significance of a term, and how the term relates to a broader field of knowledge.

To address those needs, an encyclopedia treats each subject in more depth and conveys the most relevant accumulated knowledge on that subject or discipline, given the overall length of the particular work. An encyclopedia also often includes many maps and illustrations, as well as bibliography and statistics. Historically, both encyclopedias and dictionaries have been researched and written by well-educated, well-informed content experts.

Four major elements define an encyclopedia: its subject matter, its scope, its method of organization, and its method of production.

Encyclopedias can be general, containing articles on topics in every field (the English-language Encyclopædia Britannica and German Brockhaus are well-known examples). General encyclopedias often contain guides on how to do a variety of things, as well as embedded dictionaries and gazetteers. They can also specialize in a particular field (such as an encyclopedia of medicine, philosophy, or law). There are also encyclopedias that cover a wide variety of topics from a particular cultural, ethnic, or national perspective, such as the Great Soviet Encyclopedia or Encyclopaedia Judaica.
Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain. Works vary in the breadth of material and the depth of discussion, depending on the target audience.
Some systematic method of organization is essential to making an encyclopedia usable as a work of reference. There have historically been two main methods of organizing printed encyclopedias: the alphabetical method (consisting of a number of separate articles, organised in alphabetical order), or organization by hierarchical categories. The former method is today the most common by far, especially for general works. The fluidity of electronic media, however, allows new possibilities for multiple methods of organization of the same content. Further, electronic media offer previously unimaginable capabilities for search, indexing and cross reference. The epigraph from Horace on the title page of the 18th-century Encyclopédie suggests the importance of the structure of an encyclopedia: "What grace may be added to commonplace matters by the power of order and connection."
As modern multimedia and the information age have evolved, they have had an ever-increasing effect on the collection, verification, summation, and presentation of information of all kinds. Projects such as h2g2 and Wikipedia are examples of new forms of the encyclopedia as information retrieval becomes simpler.
Some works titled "dictionaries" are actually more similar to encyclopedias, especially those concerned with a particular field (such as the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, and Black's Law Dictionary). The Macquarie Dictionary, Australia's national dictionary, became an encyclopedic dictionary after its first edition in recognition of the use of proper nouns in common communication, and the words derived from such proper nouns.
]History

Cyclopaedia, 1728
] Early encyclopedias
The idea of collecting all of the world's knowledge into a single work was an elusive vision for centuries. Many writers of antiquity (such as Aristotle) attempted to write comprehensively about all human knowledge. One of the most significant of these early encyclopedists was Pliny the Elder (first century CE), who wrote the Naturalis Historia (Natural History), a 37-volume account of the natural world that was extremely popular in western Europe for much of the Middle Ages.

The first Christian encyclopedia was Cassiodorus' Institutiones (560 CE) which inspired St. Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae (636) which became the most influential encyclopedia of the Early Middle Ages.[2] The Bibliotheca by the Patriarch Photius (9th century) was the earliest Byzantine work that could be called an encyclopedia.[2] Bartholomeus de Glanvilla's De proprietatibus rerum (1240) was the most widely read and quoted encyclopedia in the High Middle Ages while Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum Majus (1260) was the most ambitious encyclopedia in the late-medieval period at over 3 million words.[2]

The early Muslim compilations of knowledge in the Middle Ages included many comprehensive works, and much development of what we now call scientific method, historical method, and citation. About year 960, the Brethren of Purity of Basra[3] were engaged in their Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity. Notable works include Abu Bakr al-Razi's encyclopedia of science, the Mutazilite Al-Kindi's prolific output of 270 books, and Ibn Sina's medical encyclopedia, which was a standard reference work for centuries. Also notable are works of universal history (or sociology) from Asharites, al-Tabri, al-Masudi, Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings, Ibn Rustah, al-Athir, and Ibn Khaldun, whose Muqadimmah contains cautions regarding trust in written records that remain wholly applicable today. These scholars had an incalculable influence on methods of research and editing, due in part to the Islamic practice of isnad which emphasized fidelity to written record, checking sources, and skeptical inquiry.

The Chinese emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty oversaw the compilation of the Yongle Encyclopedia, one of the largest encyclopedias in history, which was completed in 1408 and comprised over 11,000 handwritten volumes, 370 million Chinese characters, of which only about 400 remain today. In the succeeding dynasty, emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty personally composed 40,000 poems as part of a 4.7 million page library in 4 divisions, including thousands of essays, called the Siku Quanshu which is probably the largest collection of books in the world. It is instructive to compare his title for this knowledge, Watching the waves in a Sacred Sea to a Western-style title for all knowledge. Encyclopedic works, both in imitation of Chinese encyclopedias and as independent works of their own origin, have been known to exist in Japan since the ninth century CE.

These works were all hand copied and thus rarely available, beyond wealthy patrons or monastic men of learning: they were expensive, and usually written for those extending knowledge rather than those using it."


Peace

Answer 7

This is probably the granddaddy of the modern versions:

"The great manifesto of the philosophe movement was no small document; by the late 1740's, everyone understood that the sum total and the entire spirit of the movement was contained in the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, known simply as Diderot's Encyclopedia .

The Encyclopedia was in fact the collective effort of over one hundred French thinkers. The central purpose of the work was to secularize learning and, above all other things, to refute what the authors felt were dangerous carry-overs from the Middle Ages. For the Encyclopedists, human improvement was not a religious issue, but simply a matter of mastering the natural world through science and technology and mastering human passions through an understanding of how individuals and societies work.

Diderot was a prolific writer who wrote on just about every topic and in just about every format. He wrote on philosophy, science, music, and art, and wrote novels, essays, and dramatic pieces. D'Alembert was a mathematician and scientist; he was responsible for the Encyclopedia 's "Preface." This preface is a vitally important document in explaining the philosophe attitude towards knowledge. In it, d'Alembert explains that the Encyclopedia has been organized around the categories of human knowledge. This, ultimately, is an Aristotelean principle, and it became the standard working principle of the Encyclopedia . This division of knowledge in the Encyclopdia was ultimately responsible for the division of human sciences we see today: the division between human and natural sciences, as well as the division between natural and mechanical sciences all owe their origin to the Encyclopedia and d'Alembert's theoretical preface."

but there were others before it:

"The idea of collecting all of the world's knowledge into a single work was an elusive vision for centuries. Many writers of antiquity (such as Aristotle) attempted to write comprehensively about all human knowledge. One of the most significant of these early encyclopedists was Pliny the Elder (first century CE), who wrote the Naturalis Historia (Natural History), a 37-volume account of the natural world that was extremely popular in western Europe for much of the Middle Ages.
The first Christian encyclopedia was Cassiodorus' Institutiones (560 CE) which inspired St. Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae (636) which became the most influential encyclopedia of the Early Middle Ages.[2] The Bibliotheca by the Patriarch Photius (9th century) was the earliest Byzantine work that could be called an encyclopedia.[2] Bartholomeus de Glanvilla's De proprietatibus rerum (1240) was the most widely read and quoted encyclopedia in the High Middle Ages while Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum Majus (1260) was the most ambitious encyclopedia in the late-medieval period at over 3 million words.[2]
The early Muslim compilations of knowledge in the Middle Ages included many comprehensive works, and much development of what we now call scientific method, historical method, and citation. About year 960, the Brethren of Purity of Basra[3] were engaged in their Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity. Notable works include Abu Bakr al-Razi's encyclopedia of science, the Mutazilite Al-Kindi's prolific output of 270 books, and Ibn Sina's medical encyclopedia, which was a standard reference work for centuries. Also notable are works of universal history (or sociology) from Asharites, al-Tabri, al-Masudi, Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings, Ibn Rustah, al-Athir, and Ibn Khaldun, whose Muqadimmah contains cautions regarding trust in written records that remain wholly applicable today. These scholars had an incalculable influence on methods of research and editing, due in part to the Islamic practice of isnad which emphasized fidelity to written record, checking sources, and skeptical inquiry.
The Chinese emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty oversaw the compilation of the Yongle Encyclopedia, one of the largest encyclopedias in history, which was completed in 1408 and comprised over 11,000 handwritten volumes, 370 million Chinese characters, of which only about 400 remain today. In the succeeding dynasty, emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty personally composed 40,000 poems as part of a 4.7 million page library in 4 divisions, including thousands of essays, called the Siku Quanshu which is probably the largest collection of books in the world. It is instructive to compare his title for this knowledge, Watching the waves in a Sacred Sea to a Western-style title for all knowledge. Encyclopedic works, both in imitation of Chinese encyclopedias and as independent works of their own origin, have been known to exist in Japan since the ninth century CE.
These works were all hand copied and thus rarely available, beyond wealthy patrons or monastic men of learning: they were expensive, and usually written for those extending knowledge rather than those using it.[2]
[edit]18th-19th centuries


Encyclopédie, 1773
The beginnings of the modern idea of the general-purpose, widely distributed printed encyclopedia precede the 18th-century encyclopedists. However, Chambers' Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, and the Encyclopédie, Encyclopædia Britannica and the Conversations-Lexikon were the first to realize the form we would recognize today, with a comprehensive scope of topics, discussed in depth and organized in an accessible, systematic method.
The term encyclopaedia was coined by 15th-century humanists who misread copies of their texts of Pliny and Quintilian, and combined the two Greek words "enkuklios paideia" into one word.
The English physician and philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne, specifically employed the word encyclopaedia as early as 1646 in the preface to the reader to describe his Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Vulgar Errors, a series of refutations of common errors of his age. Browne structured his encyclopaedia upon the time-honoured schemata of the Renaissance, the so-called 'scale of creation' which ascends a hierarchical ladder via the mineral, vegetable, animal, human, planetary and cosmological worlds. Browne's compendium went through no less than five editions, each revised and augmented, the last edition appearing in 1672. Pseudodoxia Epidemica found itself upon the bookshelves of many educated European readers for throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries it was translated into the French, Dutch and German languages as well as Latin.
John Harris is often credited with introducing the now-familiar alphabetic format in 1704 with his English Lexicon technicum. Organized alphabetically, it sought to explain not merely the terms used in the arts and sciences, but the arts and sciences themselves. Sir Isaac Newton contributed his only published work on chemistry to the second volume of 1710. Its emphasis was on science and, at about 1200 pages, its scope was more that of an encyclopedic dictionary than a true encyclopedia. Harris himself considered it a dictionary; the work is one of the first technical dictionaries in any language.
Ephraim Chambers published his Cyclopaedia in 1728. It included a broad scope of subjects, used an alphabetic arrangement, relied on many different contributors and included the innovation of cross-referencing other sections within articles. Chambers has been referred to as the father of the modern encyclopedia for this two-volume work.
A French translation of Chambers' work inspired the Encyclopédie, perhaps the most famous early encyclopedia, notable for its scope, the quality of some contributions, and its political and cultural impact in the years leading up to the French revolution. The Encyclopédie was edited by Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot and published in 17 volumes of articles, issued from 1751 to 1765, and 11 volumes of illustrations, issued from 1762 to 1772. Five volumes of supplementary material and a two volume index, supervised by other editors, were issued from 1776 to 1780 by Charles Joseph Panckoucke.
Realizing the inherent problems with the model of knowledge he had created, Diderot's view of his own success in writing the "Encyclopédie" were far from ecstatic. Diderot envisioned the perfect encyclopedia as more than the sum of its parts. In his own article on the encyclopedia, Diderot wrote, "Were an analytical dictionary of the sciences and arts nothing more than a methodical combination of their elements, I would still ask whom it behooves to fabricate good elements." Diderot viewed the ideal encyclopedia as an index of connections. He realized that all knowledge could never be amassed in one work, but he hoped the relations among subjects could be.
The Encyclopédie in turn inspired the venerable Encyclopædia Britannica, which had a modest beginning in Scotland: the first edition, issued between 1768 and 1771, had just three hastily completed volumes - A-B, C-L, and M-Z - with a total of 2,391 pages. By 1797, when the third edition was completed, it had been expanded to 18 volumes addressing a full range of topics, with articles contributed by a range of authorities on their subjects."