Quotation
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“What has never been called into question has not been proved. What has not been examined without prejudice has never been well examined. Scepticism is therefore the first step towards the truth.”
Denis Diderot · Enlightenment · Enlightenment · 1746
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the pensée as a method. A claim that has never been questioned has not been proved, and an examination that starts already decided has not been a good examination, so scepticism is the first step towards the truth rather than a refusal of it. A competing reading hears a permanent suspension, as if the first step were the whole journey. The same pensée says scepticism should be general because it is the touchstone, and it uses doubt of God as the example of a test nothing is allowed to skip. The step is first, which implies a further step when the examination has been done. The French is pensée XXXI of the Philosophical Thoughts of 1746. This English is a translation of those three sentences, not a proverb added later.
Did Denis Diderot really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A close English of pensée XXXI. The French, in the Assézat edition, is: Ce qu'on n'a jamais mis en question n'a point été prouvé. Ce qu'on n'a point examiné sans prévention n'a jamais été bien examiné. Le scepticisme est donc le premier pas vers la vérité. This wording is a translation. It is not the passions sentence.
Where it comes from
Pensées philosophiques (1746), pensée XXXI, in the Assézat edition of the complete works
Approximate date: 1746.
How to use it
A parish newsletter in Norwich that prints a claim as obvious because nobody in the room has ever asked it to show its work is the case the pensée describes. Putting the claim in question is not the same as having disproved it. Diderot's point is the smaller one: without that question, the word proved is being used too early. The meeting can still keep the claim. It cannot call it proved by silence.
A mindset reading
Scepticism here is a first move, not a personality and not a ban on concluding. The prejudice he names is the examination that has already picked its result. A doubt that never looks at the evidence is not the step he describes either. The passions line elsewhere on this page is a different pensée.
Understand the philosophy
Pensées philosophiques, 1746, pensée XXXI in the numbering of the Assézat edition. The key sentence is that scepticism is the first step towards the truth. The French is the source. The English on this card is a translation. The posterity comparison, already here, is a letter of 1766. The passions sentence is a close English of an earlier pensée in the same book.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the pensée as a method. A claim that has never been questioned has not been proved, and an examination that starts already decided has not been a good examination, so scepticism is the first step towards the truth rather than a refusal of it. A competing reading hears a permanent suspension, as if the first step were the whole journey. The same pensée says scepticism should be general because it is the touchstone, and it uses doubt of God as the example of a test nothing is allowed to skip. The step is first, which implies a further step when the examination has been done. The French is pensée XXXI of the Philosophical Thoughts of 1746. This English is a translation of those three sentences, not a proverb added later.
Did Denis Diderot really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A close English of pensée XXXI. The French, in the Assézat edition, is: Ce qu'on n'a jamais mis en question n'a point été prouvé. Ce qu'on n'a point examiné sans prévention n'a jamais été bien examiné. Le scepticisme est donc le premier pas vers la vérité. This wording is a translation. It is not the passions sentence.
Which work is it in?
Pensées philosophiques (1746), pensée XXXI, in the Assézat edition of the complete works Approximate date: 1746.