Introduction : Pensée et représentation de l’optimum au temps des Lumières (1680-1789)

Optimum thinking and its representation in the Age of Enlightenment (1680-1789) is the follow-up to a symposium held at the University of Basel in spring 2021. The aim was to examine the notion of optimum in eighteenth-century discourse, i.e., at its emergence. However, there was no univocal theorization of the concept at this time. Instead, it has quietly established itself as a "discourse operator" rather than a theoretical notion. This is why the optimum remains largely underexplored today, although central to many fields of knowledge. This introduction aims to show how different discursive constructs developed in the eighteenth century due to preconceptions of the optimum rather than the notion of the optimum itself. Without claiming exhaustiveness or to exhaust any of the domains covered, the introduction reviews specific fields of knowledge that all involve optima: engineering in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries stands out as an exemplary field to seek the best possible relationship between effort and effect. In the natural sciences, following the development of Newtonian physics, the question arose as to whether the whole of nature was not an optimal machine. The theology of Leibniz and Pope posed the same question about the metaphysical issues of evil, divine justice, and human happiness. Finally, the political and social thinking of the Enlightenment, from Mandeville to Smith via Montesquieu, raised the question of the economy of passions and the best way to organize the State. Finally, the Physiocrats, having discovered the proper laws of nature, had only to promulgate the optimal form of government. Through these different fields, we highlight the cross-disciplinary dimension of the notion of the optimum and how it informs various discourse operations whose forms extend into the 21st century.