Bruno, Maria Teresa
The Pensées philosophiques before the Pensées philosophiques
- 2024.
66
The discovery of a new manuscript of Pensées philosophiques at Yale’s Lewis-Walpole Library has revealed the existence of a version of the text prior to its printing, entitled Pensées diverses pour servir d’éclaircissements à quelques endroits des principes de la philosophie morale ou de l’essai sur le mérite et sur la vertu. It is this initial version that is published here. The critical edition of the Pensées diverses is preceded by a description and dating of the manuscript. This is a copy on which two textual layers are present: 1) a copy of the Pensées diverses in the hand of an unidentified “copyist” at this stage, and 2) additions and corrections in the hand of D’Alembert (according to Kate Tunstall’s identification), the reworked whole giving us a version very close to the one printed in March 1746. A preliminary section takes into account all the second-hand contributions, as well as the differences between the revised version and the 1746 edition.