퐁트넬의 세계

Abstract

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle(1657∼1757) French writer ; nephew of Corneille. His forte was the interpretation of science. His works include Dialogues des Morts(1683), Observations on Man; Histoire des Oracles(1687), Attacking Superstition; L'Origine des Fables(1724), On the Origin of Religions; and Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes(1686), An Exposition of the Copernican system. As secretary(1699~1741) of the Academie Royale des Sciences, Fontenelle paved the way for the ideas of the Enlightenment. Especially in his later years, as astronomer, he found millions of objects that orbit the sun between the planets with the scientists of the Academie Royale des Sciences. So this article explains the relationship between the religion, science and literature of Fontenelle by focusing on his conception of the Enlightenment. The general comprehension of Fontenelle is as a writer who enlightened the ignorant; for the instruction of the ignorant, his intellectual project ranges from literature, through science and religion, to history. Fontenelle's ideas should be investigated from the contemporary concern of Fontenelle's epoch, which looks into the unity of Truth. What Fontenelle looked for was the unity of truth, which is the unity of knowledge about Nature. The Nature of domination, as an Intelligence, created the Cosmos, imposed natural laws into it, and maintains and takes care of it.