 Diderot invented a new form of materialism, drawing on a variety of sources including the Epicurean tradition, Hobbes and Locke, Spinoza and Leibniz. He also transformed doctrines, genres and nascent intellectual constellations (skepticism, the philosophical novel, and eclecticism, to name some instances). Even if he did not wish to contribute to the genre of systematic philosophy, his contribution to the Enlightenment (and its posterity) and to subsequent intellectual episodes is considerable, difficult to measure, and should be engaged with.