One hundred years of answers to Lanson's “Questions diverses”

Abstract

The invention of the clandestine philosophicalmanuscripts by Gustave Lanson in 1912 is, undoubtedly, one of the mostimportant points of the scientific research on eighteenth century in France. Tounderstand the importance of this discovery, and the victory it representsto-day, one must measure the slowness of its penetration in the universityculture as well as the broadness of the results of the very search launched ahundred years ago. Under a modest title, « Questions diverses surl’histoire de l’esprit philosophique en France avant 1750 », Lansonprepared a project , giving the means and the method. In 1938 is published aremarkable synthetic work by Ira O. Wade, who sticks to the program of hispredecessor. In 1969 is published the first of numerous editions which developmore and more on an intensive rythm. In 1980 Olivier Bloch organizes the fistsynthetic congress on the whole phenomenon discovered by Lanson. Since then, allover the world, quests in libraries, papers, meetings, publications confirmLanson’s intuitions as well as the fertility of the clandestine lode. Thisinternational success is inevitably accompanied by acute problems of definitionand of interpretation of the corpus.