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The birth and rapid development of universal dictionaries led to a new form of dissemination of knowledge in the middle of the seventeenth century: they also include philosophical terms. But it is in the Encyclopédie that Diderot carries out the twofold and paradoxical task of transmitting the language and “changing the common mode of thinking.” At the same time he works on the dictionary, collecting and fixing the meaning of the terms of the common language, he also carries out the activity proper to philosophy: questioning existing definitions and producing new ones.