Figurative system of human knowledge
The figurative system of human knowledge ' is Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot's tree structure graph outlining human knowledge. It was produced for the Encyclopédie. According to Diderot in the article "Encyclopédie", the Encyclopédie's aim was "to change the way people think" and to allow people to inform themselves.
Knowledge organization is part of the field of information science—the academic pursuit to discover, learn, record, and share knowledge.
This tree is a taxonomy of human knowledge inspired by Francis Bacon's The [Advancement of Learning]''. The three main branches of knowledge in the tree are: "Memory"/History, "Reason"/Philosophy, and "Imagination"/Poetry.
Notable is the fact that theology is ordered under philosophy. The historian Robert Darnton argued that this categorization of religion as being subject to human reason, and not a source of knowledge in and of itself, was a significant factor in the controversy surrounding the work. "Knowledge of God" is only a few nodes away from divination and black magic.
Content
Below is a version of the Tree rendered in English as a bulleted outline."Detailed System of Human Knowledge"
from the Encyclopédie.
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