French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Fastrup, Diderot's Physiological Aesthetics
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
Fastrup, Anne
The Movement of Sensibility.
Denis Diderot's Physiological Aesthetics
2007, 224 pp., paperback
Illustrated
ISBN 978-87-635-0469-0
Series: Early Modern
Vol. 1
ISSN 1901-9912 Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was a French author and philosopher. He became a prominent figure of the Enlightenment and was himself one of the two editors-in-chief of the monumental work L'Encyclopédie.
Diderot's most famous contribution to literature is the novel Jacques the Fatalist, in which he breaks with established conventions of novelistic structure and content.
For the Enlightenment thinker, art critic, and author Denis Diderot, physiological theories of bodily sensibility represented a way out of Christian metaphysics and superstition.
In The Movement of Sensibility, this physiological influence is traced throughout Diderot's versatile oeuvre, with particular emphasis on his aesthetic reflections on painting and music.
The book explores how the new vitalist movement in eighteenth-century physiology influenced Diderot's understanding of sensory experience, including the experience of visual art and music.
Through a series of close readings of some of the most central natural-philosophical and aesthetic writings in Diderot's oeuvre, Anne Fastrup examines and discusses the epistemological and emancipatory potential that Diderot attributes to art, drawing on impulses from vitalist physiology.
The book is the first in a new series on the 17th and 18th centuries, published by Museum Tusculanum Press.
Anne Fastrup (b. 1963), PhD in Comparative Literature, is an associate professor and deputy head of department at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen.
Anne Fastrup examines how Denis Diderot integrated eighteenth-century vitalist physiology into his aesthetic reflections on painting and music. By moving away from Christian metaphysics, the Enlightenment philosopher found in bodily sensibility a new framework for understanding sensory experience and artistic perception. This study offers close readings of central natural-philosophical and aesthetic writings, highlighting the epistemological and emancipatory functions that Diderot assigned to artistic creation.
The volume situates Diderot's thought within the broader intellectual traditions of the European Enlightenment and early modern philosophy. It will be of particular interest to scholars and students of French literature, art criticism, and the history of ideas who wish to explore the intersections between science, philosophy, and aesthetics in the eighteenth century. As the inaugural title in a specialized academic series, it contributes significantly to our understanding of Diderot's versatile and enduring oeuvre.