 At the level of aesthetics, ethics or ontology itself, Diderot is a materialist concerned with utility, praxis, transformation and yes, agency (up to a point). Some commentators in earlier generations thought this spelled contradiction and the lack of any cogent philosophical position. More recently, it has been recognized that Diderot was precisely reflecting on this tension between the cosmos and time-scales stretching millions of years, and his love for Sophie Volland, or his desire to see goodness rewarded and wickedness punished. Indeed, he sometimes offers at least partial solutions to this old aporia. If it is true, on the one hand, that