| Title | : | Rameaus Nephew / DAlemberts Dream |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0140441735 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780140441734 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 237 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1769 |
Rameaus Nephew / DAlemberts Dream Reviews
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The best order of things, to my way of thinking, is the one I was meant to be part of, and to hell with the most perfect of worlds if I am not of it.
With this book, I come to the third member of the triumvirate of the French enlightenment. While Diderot’s writing may lack the sharp wit of Voltaire and the soaring lyricism of Rousseau, Diderot is nevertheless just as interesting and perhaps more lovable than his two more famous contemporaries. For Diderot maintained a childlike curiosity and an excitement for ideas that makes his writing straightforwardly pleasant, without any of Voltaire’s satiric malice or Rousseau’s paranoid egotism. It is interesting to note that, though Diderot was a widely respected writer during his lifetime, his most daring and original works, such as these two dialogues, remained unpublished until well after his death. It takes talent to be both a conventional and an unconventional genius.
Rameau’s Nephew, in addition to its philosophical content, is remarkable simply as literature. It consists of a dialogue between a philosopher (who most assume to be Diderot) and the nephew of the famous composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau, who is an eccentric, ne’er-do-well, moocher, bohemian sort of fellow, whose ostensible profession is to give music lessons, but who really makes his living by playing the fool and flattering rich patrons. The conversation takes many twists and turns, which gives Diderot the opportunity to include some barbs against his rivals and enemies. Indeed, it is difficult to say that any topic is the main focus of the conversation, since—as in reality—the speakers break off on tangents, bring up and drop points, interrupt each other and themselves, and so on. This veracity of Diderot’s representation, and the excellent portrait of a hedonist living on the edge of respectable society, give the dialogue a literary value independent of any intellectual considerations. On a philosophical level, what mainly interested me was the confrontation of a virtuous philosopher with a selfish nihilist.
D’Alembert’s Dream is a more strictly philosophical exercise, detailing Diderot’s materialistic theory of biology. His main contention is that all matter is sensitive, or at least potentially sensitive, and thus no mind or soul is needed to explain life, movement, memory, sensation, or thought. Though this hypothesis mainly consists of armchair theorizing, which may sound very facile in the light of serious research, Diderot does put forward a hazy idea of evolution in this dialogue. What is more, in his notion of characteristics disappearing for several generations, and then reappearing, he also hazily hits upon Mendel. Not content to simply write an essay, Diderot puts all this in the mouth of his fellow encyclopedist D’Alembert (who spends most of the dialogue talking in his sleep), Mlle de Lespinasse (a close friend of D’Alembert who hosted a famous salon), and a doctor that serves as Diderot’s mouthpiece. D’Alembert and Mlle de Lespinasse were understandably upset when they heard about this (especially considering that the dialogue ends with a ringing endorsement of masturbation), and even compelled Diderot to burn the manuscript, but another one (in the possession of Grimm) survived.
As I put the book down, I find myself wishing I could spend more time in the company of Diderot, whose writing is warm and direct, witty but not showy, intellectual but not pretentious, daring but not wilfully provocative. It is amazing that one man could find the time to write literary classics while keeping his day job as the editor of the Encyclopédie and a popular playwright. -
Denis Diderot'nun "D'Alembert / Entretien entre D'Alembert et Diderot - Le rêve de D'Alembert - Suite de l'entretien entre D'Alembert et Diderot", "La Marechale" ve "Başrahip Barthelemy" adlı üç felsefi konuşmasını tek bir cilt halinde okuyucuya sunan "Felsefe Konuşmaları", Diderot'nun filozof olarak ne kadar ileri görüşlü ve modern olduğunu özetleyen oldukça önemli bir felsefi eser. Özellikle ilk kitapta evrime dair öne sürdüğü zamanının çok ilerisindeki görüşlerle Darwin'e ilham kaynağı olan Diderot'nun inanç ve din ile ilgili olan diğer iki bölümünde ise yazarın yaşamı boyunca neden eserlerini sakladığının özeti niteliğine. Din kavramının gereksiz olduğunun altının çizildiği, öteki dünya üzerine kuşkucu bir tavır sergileyen Diderot, dünya üzerinde yaşananlarla ahlak arasında bir köprü kurarak yaşamın adaletsizliği üzerinden Tanrı inancını sorgulayan enfes bir final yapıyor. Bilgisizlikten yapılan kötülüklerin sorumluluğunu açık mesajlar vermeyen Tanrı üzerine yükleyen Diderot, din yüzünden işlenen vahşeti de ciddi bir dille eleştiriyor. Eserinde Pascal, Jonathan Swift ve La Fontaine'e atıfta bulunan ünlü filozofun görüşlerinin ise Spinoza'ya benzediğini belirtmek gerek. İlk bölümün uzunluğu sebebiyle ne yazık ki tam puan veremeyeceğim eserin mutlaka okunması gereken felsefe eserleri arasında olduğunu söyleyebilirim. Tam notum: 4,5/5.
17.07.2019
Barcelona, İspanya - İstanbul, Türkiye
Alp Turgut
http://www.filmdoktoru.com/kitap-labo... -
Rameau's Nephew is an examination of the dilemma of a social-hanger-on, an intellectual near-genius, who is just short of becoming a great man, but who is also a sort of product of a degenerate society, who can't manage to rise above the demands of his stomach, and so he has to behave in a somewhat craven way. He's somewhat short of greatness... but he's also somewhat short of complete depravity. He has a mind and inclination to become a very talented devil and rogue, but yet at the same time he can't become such an out-and-out rogue because his intellect and self-awareness provide him with an unwanted sense of honor, and his potential for virtue (though he is not a virtuous man) is a stumbling block to true "success" in roguery.
Thus, the text is, in part, a condemnation of a society that seems geared to producing mediocrities. The not-great Rameau (as opposed to the Great Rameau, his well-regarded uncle) is really painful to see, actually, because he could and should, if the world were virtuous, achieve great things. Instead he's a talented critic, mimic, and buffoon with the kind of fatal flaws that will get him alternately invited into and then rejected from society (that is, the society of the influential, wealthy, important people who will pay for flattery and and a bit of entertaining "wit").
The text, sadly, feels a bit like a study that could have been developed into something greater. Ironically, for me the story/dialog seems to be a bit mediocre in its execution. We've been introduced to this character, and a lot of what goes on in his mind is exposed in his dialogue with "I" (Diderot's assumed avatar within the text, who yet serves more as a surrogate for the reader than as a mouthpiece for Diderot's own opinions). But some of the details which could give this more poignancy seem to have been handled in an ambiguous and sketchy manner. Some interesting ideas to meditate on are introduced, yet seem also to trail off. I don't demand that the book reach neat conclusions in everything, but there is an overall feeling of incompleteness and indistinctness. There is not much to latch on to that feels memorable. In fact, this was a reread for me, and I could hardly remember anything from my first read... this may even be my third exposure after a nearly completely forgotten attempt to tackle it a decade ago.
And yet, as I was reaching the end of the text, I found myself feeling more positive about the work. It did achieve something in the way of a notable effect. It's ambiguous character, lack of a firm moral conclusion, and effective expression of some of the doubts and frustrations experienced by "I" (and thus, probably Diderot) felt like something that needed to be written. So I can't reject or disdain the work. It just didn't have such a profound impact on me, or produce such an impressive result as Diderot's
Jacques the Fatalist.
Thus, this may not be a masterwork for Diderot, but it has its value for a reader who is interested enough and patient enough to want to explore one of Diderot's sketches, and to tell the truth I feel that I will be returning to this once again someday.
-------------------------------------------
D'Alembert's dream is an extremely ambitious philosophical exercise. The author attempts, in a relatively short series of dialogues, to demonstrate that lifeless matter, through natural processes, can develop into sentient and intelligent beings without the intervention of a supernatural agent. In other words, the origin of life does not imply a God or immaterial spirit, and so the last objections to atheism and materialism are put to rest.
Along the way, he illuminates topics ranging from evolution, neurology, the nature of consciousness and dreams, the primacy of memory in developing an individual identity, determinism, what we can learn from examining malformed children and conjoined-twins, and even the ethics of sexual relations. He argues in favor of masturbation, and proclaims the ethical legitimacy of homosexuality.
Much of his musing goes beyond what had yet been developed into a science. Note that this was written seventy years before Darwin's origin of the species, for instance, and so it prefigures some of the ideas that will be more fully developed in later generations, and it proposes ideas which would be more readily acceptable in the nineteenth century. In this way, Diderot can seem to be remarkably progressive and well ahead of his times.
At the same time, the text does reflect some ideas of its time which have since been invalidated. For example, it makes reference to spontaneous generation, the frequent and observable production of life without parentage from within a non-living organic matrix.
The text is certainly interesting, and at times it's entertaining, while at other times it may seem a bit obscure, dry, even sometimes tedious. It's hard to evaluate it as a reading experience. For one thing, the author has obviously contrived to put his ideas into the mouths of the participants in a didactic dialogue which doesn't resemble any conceivable actual dialogue. He is certainly aware of his own artifice, and even plays with it by pushing it to a kind of extreme:
Mademoiselle De L'Espinasse: As the doctor has listened to your story he will have to hear mine as well. A young man of eighteen or twenty, whose name I don't remember....
Bordeu: It was one M. de Schellemberg of Winterthur, and he was only fifteen or sixteen.
The characters are so skilled at anticipating one another's thoughts and completing them, that the Doctor here immediately knows who De L'Espinasse is going to talk about, and what she's going to say about him, despite the fact that his only clue is his age, and she even got that wrong! But the doctor Bordeu is always staying a step or two ahead of the others and can instantly comprehend and interpret the most obscure comments.
This made a kind of sense to me, as exhibiting the idea that the individual is an illusion, and we are all a part of a universal natural system. The author can manipulate this while at the same time self-consciously putting the lie to the dialectical method by making the artifice apparent.
There was one reflection in particular that I related to, and that is rarely raised. It seems largely in opposition to today's dominant faith in the inherent value of "nature" and the inherent badness of the synthetic/unnatural. That was the statement that there is nothing that is unnatural.
Yup. Diderot scores some points with me. I wonder to what extent, however, many readers today will feel challenged by the text's ideas, and how many will approach it as merely quaint. -
So, there's this crazy violin player that busks in my subway station. He's probably in his mid-forties, and in the many months that I have known him, I have only seen him in one set of clothes. When he plays, you can tell that he was probably classically trained as a kid, and showed great promise as a young man. Then, something or another must've gone wrong, and now here he is, playing violin on the Q train platform at the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street subway station in Brooklyn every day, hardly making more than a few bucks. Even though his violin is never quite in tune and could definitely use new strings, he still plays, hands down, the most beautiful (and wonderfully unhinged) version of Schubert's Ave Maria that I've ever heard. Anyway, as I was reading Rameau's Nephew, I couldn't help but imagine it as a dialogue between subway violin man and myself. I like to think of him as a sort of mad genius, like Diderot's Jean-François Rameau, even if, in actuality, he is just straight up mad.
Diderot has an extremely fertile imagination and, like Pope and Dryden, has a remarkable ability to take people from real life and, from them, create almost completely fabricated characters and situations with little bearing to these people's actual circumstances. Diderot can really take an idea and run with it. He takes Rameau's nephew and converts him into a vessel for... well, that's where things get a little complicated. My very first impression was that he was being used to express a darker side of Diderot himself, as he would be if he wasn't restrained by morals or social conventions, but I quickly disregarded that idea when I remembered that Diderot, the guy who wrote a book from the perspective of a vagina, probably didn't feel so horribly constricted by social norms. I switched from thinking that he was intended to be the epitome of depravity, to the epitome of genius, to a combination of the two, to neither. I then resolved that this was totally just a fun character study for Diderot and that none of it should be taken to heart. Then I decided that that was a stupid idea and that Rameau's nephew was perhaps intended to exemplify, as Pope said, "those half-formed witlings, num'rous in our isle, as half-formed insects on the banks of Nile," (except substitute 'isle' for 'France') y'know, the social parasites, feeding off the patronage and wit and attention of others, giving nothing in return but empty praise and admiration... No, I think Diderot's Rameau is more than that. The people around him certainly fall under the umbrella of "half-formed witlings" (I'm sorry, that's one of my favorite descriptions of all time), but Rameau himself is different. He's a man who falls short of genius and into abjection, and... ugh. This review has become just as rambling as the book, without any of the entertainment. I'm sorry to anybody who is reading this. Just read the damn book yourself if you want to figure out the character of Rameau's nephew. All in all, I read it as a satire of fashionable society, patronage, the pettiness of the upper class, the desperation of the lower class, the opposition to the Encyclopedié, and whatever else I that can't recall right now (there really is a lot going on in this book), and an exploration of the sublime, the ridiculous, morality, music, buffoonery, and, again, whatever else I'm forgetting, because there's certainly more to it than just that. And it was a whole lot of fun.
My favourite parts of the book were the parts in which Rameau and Diderot discuss music. Rameau's nephew has some pretty wack taste in opera, lemme tell ya. He keeps lauding Duni as the greatest living composer, whilst lampooning the likes of Lully, Pergolesi, and his uncle. What?!?!?! Was that opinion supposed to be satirical? I mean, to each his own, but...
The dialogue format is perfect for this book- it lets Rameau's (well, Diderot's) musings fly freely without being leaded down by plot. The witticisms, reflections, maxims, etc. shoot out of this book like sparks from a fire, and to spend time ruminating on each and every point individually would be overwhelming. Instead, I chose to read this at the speed that I would have a conversation at, which made me feel like I was a part of this lively discussion. Read first, then reflect later. I don't think that this is a book to be analyzed- it's a book to be experienced. -
I'm inclined to believe that Diderot's Rameau's Nephew was written of his lover.
"Did I admire him? Yes, I did admire. Was I moved to pity? I was moved. But a streak of derision was interwoven with these feelings and denatured them. [...] He would show me every conceivable thing. He wept, laughed, sighed, looked placid or melting or enraged. He was a woman in a spasm of agony, a wretched man sunk in despair, a temple being erected, birds growing silent at sunset, waters murmuring through cool and solitary places or else cascading from a mountain top, a storm, a hurricane, the anguish of those about to die, mingled with the whistling of the wind and the noise of thunder. He was night and its gloom, shade and silence--for silence itself is depictable in sound. He had lost his senses."
That sounds like Love to me; perhaps illicit and one that defies his better judgment, but none the less Love. -
My cat didn't like it, and to be honest, neither did I.
-
This is ok but it isn't a patch on Jaques the Fatalist, which is one of the most incredible novels ever written. Rameau's Nephew is a philosophical dialogue which reminds me of the Maxims of La Rochefocauld, Kierkegaard, Knut Hamsum and Notes from the Underground. Rameau's nephew is frankly amoral and his dialogue with Diderot undermines the conventional morality and beliefs of his society. D'Alembert's dream is a dialogue in which the characters discuss the notion of a materialist interpretation of the universe, without a god or a soul. This is so controversial that Diderot didn't try to publish the book in his lifetime, but it feels less urgent today.
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The subjects are interesting but the discussion has a dated feel. Rameau's Nephew is at heart a debate on the worth of virtues and moral systems as opposed to pure self interest. D'Alembert's Dream is a debate that anticipates Darwin by a century by trying to knock down a teleological view of reality. Striking in this last book are Diderot's astonishingly modern comments about masturbation and same-sex attraction.
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Le Neveu de Rameau est reflexion sur le conflit entre la vertu et le mal dans la forme d'un dialogue de virtuouse entre un philosophe qui est partisan de la vertu et le fictif neveu du celebre compositeur Rameau qui est un escroc cynique. On arrive jamais aux conclusions bien entendu mais la conversation frénétique est bien savoureuse.
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Full disclosure: this is a review only of the first work in this book - Rameau’s Nephew. To have claimed the venerated status of Goodreads ‘read’ with only 125 of 237 pages read is, I’m aware, deceptive. But as I purchased this book only because I couldn’t find a Rameau’s Nephew exclusive edition should, I hope, mitigate some of the mendaciousness of my claim.
On to the review. Rameau’s Nephew is a dialogue by famed encyclopaedist Denis Diderot. In it, we hear a discussion between Rameau and the author - Mr Philosopher to Rameau. The discussion itself, in a Paris chess cafe, is mildly amusing as it goes. The younger Rameau (a real person, son of a real composer) is an inveterate scrounger, proudly living off the largess of others.
The book is Rameau’s description of his life, couched in his highly materialistic philosophy. In essence: man should get rich in order to be able to enjoy the material (read: sensuous) pleasures of this world. The book is at its best when Rameau is diving into descriptions of his work as a quasi-professional sycophant, running errands for the great and good of Paris in the hope for a seat at their table. He tells us of the great flatterers who he emulates and admires.
A particularly memorable sequence sees him describe the less pleasant sides of his job - it’s not all free dinners of course. This includes procuring parts for untalented actress-patrons of his. Not only must he demean himself by inveigling upon the playwrights to put these hacks in their plays, but he must then attend the shows as well:
“I had to make my solitary claps resound, make everybody look at me, sometimes steal the hisses from the actress herself and hear them whispering round me: ‘It’s one of the lackeys of the chap who sleeps with her; why won’t the wretch shut up?’ … All I could do was to pass a few sarcastic remarks in order to cover up the absurdity of my solitary applause … You must admit that you need a powerful incentive to brave the whole assembled public in this way, and that each of these ordeals was worth more than half a crown.”
Interspersed among these tales of his craft, we are treated to Rameau jumping up and belting out whole arias or orchestral works - taking on all the parts at once somehow - much to the amusement of passers-by. These brief interludes offer a useful breakup of the action and counterweight to Rameau’s monologues. Indeed, Diderot (the writer’s) tendency to use himself simply as a foil for Rameau’s stories and ‘outrageous’ views is one of the key issues in the book. There is no real sense of ‘dialogue’ here - just a madman raving. A more balanced discussion with a better-rounded-out Diderot character would have made this a little more compelling.
As it is, the work tends towards the sententious. Diderot (both character and author) is a man who values reason and cool judgement. Whether Rameau represents his flirtation with a more hedonistic, base lifestyle that Diderot never could adopt or is meant as a straight inculpation of that lifestyle is unclear. What is clear is that the framing of lots of Rameau’s views as risqué is clearly a product of the time. Much of what the eccentric nephew says will be seen as anything but shocking today. Throw in a shedload of highly specific references to contemporary Parisians and you have a book that might well be important for Diderot fans but is fairly irrelevant read for the modern, non-specialist reader. -
Philosophy is a difficult area of study. I will not say the most difficult, because much depends on temperament and expertise. Personally I would rather read a book of philosophy than one about mathematics or economics. A person who is well-versed in philosophy might be able to read the works of philosophers with ease due to experience, and being familiar with the common language used by many writers in the field.
Nonetheless philosophy is not an easy subject to comprehend. There are two main reasons. The first and most obvious is the abstract nature of the concepts, which are expressed in language that demands considerable concentration.
I would add a second more frivolous reason, which is that philosophy is one of the most humourless of subjects. Most areas of study allow room for humour or funny anecdotes, but I suspect that it is possible to fire a cannonball through most of the major works of philosophy without hitting a single funny line.
One exception to this rule is Denis Diderot, the eighteenth century philosopher. On the strength of Rameau’s Nephew and D’Alembert’s Dream, Diderot is very funny, and even bawdy when the occasion arises.
I suspect that this is one reason why neither work was released in Diderot’s lifetime. For reasons known only to himself, Diderot chose to put his ideas into the mouths of real people who lived during his time, and I doubt they would have been happy to see themselves saying these words in print.
Rameau was a famous French composer, and he did have a nephew, but whether the nephew was a rascally hanger-on as portrayed by Diderot, I am uncertain. There was a D’Alembert, Dr Bordeu and Mademoiselle De L’Espinasse, and I believe they actively opposed Diderot releasing D’Alembert’s Dream. Given the saucy flirtation and explicit sexual exchanges between the doctor and the salon holder, I can see why they might not be keen.
Rameau’s Nephew is the more baffling of the two works. It comprises a discussion between a philosopher and the nephew, Jean-François Rameau (from now on, when I refer to Rameau I mean the nephew). Rameau defends his lifestyle as a jester, hanger-on and general leech on society in eloquent terms. These are criticised and partly-accepted by the philosopher.
It is a curious work, rather like reading the exchanges in a Shakespeare play between a lord and his amoral servant while we wait for the action to start. However this time there is no action to start, and the conversation is all.
What are we to make of the work? Rameau’s statements are disgracefully amoral. He defends crime, theft and love of money. He dismissively discusses current trends in music. He is cynical about morals, including morality in literature, arguing that Moliere and others show the stereotypical habits of the miser and the hypocrite, thereby showing the real culprits how to make themselves less obvious.
Does Diderot really believe this? He distances himself by including a philosopher in the dialogue, who we might assume to be himself. However the more eloquent arguments are put into the mouth of the dissolute Rameau, which would suggest that Diderot at least partly identifies with them.
The solution to these ambiguities is to point out that Diderot calls the work a Satire. Like many satirists, he is putting across an argument that takes things to extremes, and does not reflect his own position. He is showing a society in which genius is not rewarded, and mediocrity and bad behaviour is. In such a society, Rameau’s arguments therefore have merit.
The second work, D’Alembert’s Dream, is the superior one. The work comprises three sections. D’Alembert has a frustrating conversation with Diderot, in which he tries to argue in favour of a universal Being, but the materialistic Diderot locates consciousness in matter, suggesting that it arises from the sensitivity of individual parts, and that these exist in non-living matter too, which can be absorbed into living matter.
In the second and longest part, D’Alembert is mostly asleep, but he is going over the discussion with Diderot in his mind, and angrily debating with him. His live-in partner Mlle De L’Espinasse is alarmed by this, and asks the advice of Dr Bordeu.
Thankfully Mlle De L’Espinasse has improbably committed D’Alembert’s philosophical arguments to paper, and Bordeu is no mean philosopher himself. Bordeu proceeds to explain and develop the ideas expressed by the sleeping D’Alembert, with intermittent interruptions from the waking man.
I was pleased to observe that Mlle De L’Espinasse is not portrayed as an empty-headed woman who cannot comprehend what she is hearing. She proves to be an intelligent pupil, asking pertinent questions and drawing conclusions. She is still a learner, rather than a teacher, but it is surprisingly advanced for an 18th century writer to acknowledge that a woman could be clever and educated enough to follow a complex intellectual argument. No wonder Bordeu enjoys flirting with her.
The argument is a long and complex one, and a Goodreads review is not the place to offer it up in detail. It is a surprisingly modern one. Diderot offers up a secular argument for the development of the body and consciousness, based on what we would now call nerves. He implies a development over time of the human body, and suggests that we are related to animals, an argument that anticipates the theory of evolution. This widens out the discussion to include examples of mutation in human development, and the ways in which psychological and moral behaviour have their roots in terms of our physiology.
The final section of the book is a more mischievous one concerning sexual morality. Bordeu once more meets up with Mlle De L’Espinasse, and they talk about sexual practices, and whether they are moral or not. Both agree that chastity, though not immoral, has no benefit or use in society. However Bordeu goes further, taking an astonishingly progressive stance, by defending masturbation and homosexuality as practices that give pleasure and cause no harm.
It is easy to see why these two works were not released in Diderot’s time, and why the real-life subjects of his work would not have wished to be associated with them. Viewed from today’s perspective, I found the works stimulating and provocative. -
18.yy için son derece ileri görüşlü, aydın, vizyoner bir felsefeci olduğu su götürmez bir gerçek, ama yazıları ve fikirleri 21.yy için biraz fazla sıradan... Ansiklopedi başyazarı olarak elbette edebi yönünü kasten köreltmiş. Materyalist ve laik bir dünya inancı içerisinde din bağından kurtulmuş bir toplum ve kilise baskısından kurtulmuş bir fikir dünyası için çalışmış.
Bitsin diye okudum işte...
Ama Yeni çağ felsefesi ve Fransız Aydınlanmasında kültürel yönden nispeten elit sayılabilecek kişileri ile yaptığı sohbetleri diyaloglar halinde derlediği bu kitap dönem sıradan elitlerinin düşünce dünyasını anlamakta önemli bir rehber olabilir. -
review of
Diderot's Rameau's Nephew / D'Alembert's Dream
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 13-19, 2023
For the complete review go here:
http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticD...
Michael Snow is dead, Long Live Michael Snow! Wha?! In the last yr at least 2 people died who I didn't really feel the importance of to me until after learning of their deaths. One of them was Michael Snow. It occurred to me that, despite knowing of his work since the 1970s, I'd seen very few of his movies. SO, I looked online for copies of them for sale & got a copy of his Rameau's Nephew (not the full title) wch came w/ a bk. I watched the movie & started reading the bk & realized that I'd just have to read Diderot's original to get a fuller picture of the whole meaning of it all. Fortunately, I'd had a copy of this bk in my personal library for decades & I think it's even the very same edition that appears in Snow's movie in one scene. SOO, I decided to read this 1st before finishing the bk about Snow's movie. From the FOREWORD:
"Le Neveu de Rameau, in form as in other respects unique, veers bewilderingly in style from the inflated, rhetorical and bombastic to the simple, slangy and coarse, and often the face value of what is said is not the author's intention, for he is being ironical as well as humorous." - p 7
I'd never read anything by Diderot before & while I found him interesting I'm not so sure I wd've wanted to be a character in either of these 2 bks. Diderot seemed bizarrely insensitive to the people he used.
"It was his work as a translator which prompted a syndicate of publishers to entrust to him, after one or two false starts with others, the task of translating Chambers's Cyclopedia, a fairly modest compilation, into French. But like so many things Diderot touched, the simple publisher's project rapidly enlarged itself until the work became the first great Encylclopedia of the modern world, running to seventeen folio volumes of text and eleven supplementary volumes of plates, and taking in all about twenty-five years to reach completion." - p 9
"An eternal adolescent, he was bursting with enthusiasm and curiosity about the worlds of science, art, music, the theatre and technology, full of the excitement of discovery, always elaborating some new theory, arguing with the wrong-headed, an idealist and a realist, sublime but not averse to the smutty joke, a down-to-earth materialist yet haunted by moral scruples and a highly developed social sense, a scientist always in a state of febrile emotion and seldom far from tears, a deadly enemy but the kindest and most companionable of men." - pp 10-11
That's quite a description isn't it? Some people can be unconscious of their contradictions & accept them as necessary to having flexibility of reaction. Others might be unconscious of their contradictions & might seem to be hypocritical or confused. Perhaps the bottom line is that a complex person isn't reducible to a single dogma.
"And finally Rameau's Nephew, a work belonging to no recognizable genre, neither novel nor play nor essay nor, in spite of its sub-title, satire, and unique in French literature." - p 11
&, perhaps, that's the description that comes closest to also describing Rameau's Nephew by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen by Michael Snow from roughly 300 yrs later.
"Rameau's Nephew is a masterpiece alone of its kind and not a little mysterious. Almost every aspect of it, dating, intention, meaning, is open to debate, and tentative conclusions about one aspect are often flatly contradicted by another." - p 15
"It seems rather stretching a point to suggest that Diderot wrote this brilliant piece of invective for the private satisfaction of knowing that it might possibly be published after his death and after that of most of the people attacked." - p 17
"Nor is the list of conjectures exhausted. Is it a dialogue between the respectable, law-abiding side of each one of us and the anarchist, irresponsible, wholly self-centered side?" - p 18
It's an ongoing project of mine to point out what I consider to be misues of "anarchy", "anarchist", "anarchism", "anarchistic", etc, in things that I read. The above's a perfect example. "law-abiding" is equated w/ being "respectable". It wd've been "law-abiding" in Nazi Germany to assist in the robbery & murder of Jews, homosexuals, dissidents, & Gypsies. Somehow, that's not "respectable" to me. The opposite of this is presented as being "anarchist" wch is equated w/ "irresponsible" & "wholly self-centered" & yet it's anarchists who put the most emphasis on taking responsibility for oneself & NOT relinquishing it to the following of laws & leaders. It's also anarchists who make themselves wholly unpopular by protesting & resisting ongoing acts of injustice - a process about as opposite of "self-centered" as it gets.
"I hold discussions with myself on politics, love, taste or philosophy, and let my thoughts wander in complete abandon, leaving them free to follow the first wise or foolish idea that comes along."
[..]
"There the most amazing moves can be seen and the poorest conversation be heard, for if you can be a man of wit and a great chessplayer like Legal you can also be a great chess-player and an ass like Foubert and Mayot."
This is the 1st flagrant insult from Diderot that appears in Rameau's Nephew. It's no wonder that he didn't publish it when it was written. I can't really say that I completely approve of insulting people &, yet, there is some refreshment to be had from openly speaking one's generally more self-censored thoughts. Rameau's Nephew is full of insults.
"a hundred lickspittles would come and pay court to me every day (he seemed to see them all around him — Palissot, Poincinet, the Frérons, father and son, La Porte[)]" - p 44
These are real people, real enemies of Diderot.
"9. Palissot (1730-1814), arch-enemy of the movement, caricatured Diderot and his associates in the comedy Les Philosophes (1760). There were two Poinsinets, cousins, one of whom, Henri Poinsinet (1735-69), known as the younger, attacked the Encylopaedists in his comedy Le Petit Philosophe (1760). The elder Fréron (1719-76), the great enemy of Voltaire, waged an anti-philosophic warfare in his Année littéraire. His son was born in 1754, which again dates this part of the work well into the 1770s. Les Trois siècles de la littérature française, 3 vols, 1772, by Sabatier des Castres, Palissot and others, a sort of history of French literature, was violently biased and hostile to Voltaire and the Enlightenment. This reference is yet another factor in the final dating of this work." - p 128
[..]
"He is a compound of the highest and the lowest, good sense and folly." - p 33
"HE: You have always taken a certain amount of interest in me because, although I am a chap you really despise, I amuse you at the same time." - p 45
Diderot's depiction of Rameau's nephew presents him as simultaneously impossibly talented & a sycophantic creep - but slipping thru his cracks there's a FOOL, as in a comedian who speaks truth to power & gets away w/ it if he's charming enuf.
"He stirs people up and gives them a shaking, makes them take sides, brings out the truth, shows who are really good and unmasks the villains. It is then that the wise man listens and sorts people out." - p 35
He's also really the nephew of the famous composer. While I was reading this bk I got out the boxset I have of Jean Philippe Rameau's opera-ballet entitled "Les Indes Galantes" (1735; revised 1743) & listened to it 2 or more times to 'put me in the mood' for having an opinion about Rameau's music wch this bk's introductory scholarliness tells me Diderot didn't like. I know next to nothing of Baroque era music so listening to this opera-ballet just yields a respect for the apparent attn to detail w/o yielding a true appreciation of what might've made it most interesting in its day.
"He is a nephew of the famous musician who has delivered us from the plainsong of Lully that we have been chanting for over a hundred years, who has written so many unintelligible visions and apocalyptic truths on the theory of music, not a word of which he or anyone else has ever understood" - p 35
Wow, that really makes me want to read Rameau's music theory bk(s). I wonder if they're available in English?
"Rameau's 1722 Treatise on Harmony initiated a revolution in music theory. Rameau posited the discovery of the "fundamental law" or what he referred to as the "fundamental bass" of all Western music. Heavily influenced by new Cartesian modes of thought and analysis, Rameau's methodology incorporated mathematics, commentary, analysis and a didacticism that was specifically intended to illuminate, scientifically, the structure and principles of music. With careful deductive reasoning, he attempted to derive universal harmonic principles from natural causes. Previous treatises on harmony had been purely practical; Rameau embraced the new philosophical rationalism, quickly rising to prominence in France as the "Isaac Newton of Music". His fame subsequently spread throughout all Europe, and his Treatise became the definitive authority on music theory, forming the foundation for instruction in western music that persists to this day." -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Ph...
Wow again. On 2nd thought I've probably intuitively rejected Rameau's theory from day one. Or even the day before day one. Nonetheless, I just bought the bk.
"I: Speaking of your uncle, do you see him sometimes?
"HE: Yes, going past in the street.
"I: Doesn't he ever do anything for you?
"HE: If he ever did anything for anybody it was without realizing it. He is a philosopher in his way. He thinks of nothing but himself, and the rest of the universe is not worth a pin to him. His wife and daughter can just die when they like, and so long as the parish tolls tolling their knell go on sounding intervals of a twelfth and a seventeenth everything will be all right. He's quite happy. That is what I particularly value in men of genius. They are only good for one thing, and apart from that, nothing." - p 37
Whew! That's harsh there Diderot old man!
"I: Steady, my dear fellow. Now look, tell me—I won't take your uncle as an example, for he is a hard man, brutal, inhuman, avaricious, he is a bad father, bad husband, bad uncle; but it is not quite certain that he is a man of genius, that he has taken his art very far or that his work will count ten years from now." - p 40
Uh.. I bought 3 records of his music today, 259 yrs after his death, so it looks like he made the cut.
"Who is disgraced today, Socrates or the judge who made him drink the hemlock?
"HE: And a fat lot of goood it has done him! Was he condemned and put to death any the less for that? Was he any the less a seditious citizen? Because he despised a bad law did that do anything to prevent his encouraging fools to despise a good one? Was he any the less impudent and eccentric as a person?" - p 39
These strike me as odd questions that Rameau's nephew is asking since he's being presented as an "impudent and eccentric" person himself. Diderot waxes ironic.
"Or again we could wish that Voltaire had the gentleness of Duclos, the ingenuousness of Abbé Trublet or the uprightness of Abbé d'Olivet" - p 42
"Charles Duclos (1704-72), novelist, historian and essayist. His most important work was the Considérations sur les moeurs de ce siècle (1750). In 1755 he became secretary of the Acamémie française. Although sympathetic towards the Encyclopaedists he was a moderate man and thought Diderot a violent fanatic, and used his influence to keep him out of the Academy. Hence Diderot's resentment.
"The Abbé Trublet (1697-1770) was a deadly enemy of Voltaire and a sarcastic, unpleasant person.
"The Abbé d'Olivet (1682-1768), historian of the Académie française, had a reputation for hypocrisy and dissimulation. Diderot is therefore ironically praising this trio for the opposite virtues to their known vices." - p 127
Rameau's nephew has gotten out of favor w/ the rich patrons he was usually brown-nosing b/c he left some of his contempt slip. Diderot encourages him to try to get back in their good graces.
"HE: Yes, you are right. I think that is best. She is kind hearted. Monsieur Vieillard says she is so kind! I know myself that she is. And yet to have to go and eat humble pie in front of the bitch! Beg for mercy at the feet of a miserable little performer who is constantly booed by the pit!" - p 48
"I: Ah, but you see, my friend, she is fair, pretty, young, soft and plump, and so it is an act of humility to which one more delicate than you might stoop upon occasion.
"HE: Let's get this clear: there is arse-kissing literally and arse-kissing metaphorically. Ask fat old Bergier, who kisses Madame de la Marque's arse both literally and metaphorically — and my goodness, in that case I should find them both equally unpleasant.
"I: If the way I'm suggesting doesn't appeal to you then have the courage to be a pauper.
"HE: But it is hard to be a pauper while there are so man wealthy idiots you can live on. And then the self-conetempt; that is unbearable." - p 49
Throughout, Diderot's position vis a vis Rameau & his nephew seems to be one mostly of contempt.. &, yet, when he gives these presumably highly exaggerated accts of his pioneering work as an air violinist (centuries ahead of air guitarists) his descriptions make the nephew seem astoundingly talented.
"(At the same time he takes up the position of a violinist, hums an allegro of Locatelli, his right arm moves as though bowing and his left hand and fingers seem to fly up and down the neck. If he plays a wrong note he stops, tightens or loosens the string, plucking it with his nail to make sure it is in tune, then takes up the piece again where he broke off, tapping the time with his foot; head, feet, hands, arms, body all play their part.[)]" - p 53
The fact that he's miming playing a piece by Locatelli is marvelous enuf but what I wonder is: If this had been written 80 yrs later wd it've been Niccolò Paganini? The nephew partially employs himself giving music lessons to the children of the aristocracy. Given that he's obviously passionate about music he expresses a cynical attitude to teaching it. 1st, tho, Diderot dismisses it as useless.
"HE: Eight! She should have had her fingers on the keys these four years.
"I: But perhaps I was not all that anxious to bring into her educational program a subject that takes up so much time and serves so little purpose." - p 56
I'm not really that sure that I like Diderot. I respect that he was an Encyclopaediast but it seems like he might've also been right at home in today's QUARANTYRANNY in wch music has been declard non-essential in contrast to Dunkin' Donuts. For me, the performance of music is a highly disciplined activity in wch perceptual acuity, intuition, & a sort of instinctual mathematic ability combine at a speed difficult to track. But then I'm not one of those people who's easily impressed by some big guys throwing a ball around & ramming into each other. I'm more impressed by any pianist who can play Alkan or Scriabin or Sorabji or Elliott Carter, etc. Doing that makes a football player look like little more than a boulder being shoved downhill in contrast.
"I: I am reflecting that everything you have said is more specious than logical. But let it go at that. You say you have taught accompaniment and composition?
"HE: Yes.
"I: Knowing nothing whatever about it?
"HE: No, I certainly didn't, and that is why there were worse teachers than me: the ones who thought they knew something. At any rate I didn't ruin the intelligence and fingers of the children. When they went on from me to a good teacher, having learned nothing they had nothing to unlearn, and that was so much time and money saved." - p 58
Diderot admits to an affinity for some of the things that the nephew is saying.
"I'm not above the peasures of the senses myself. I have a palate too, and it is tickled by a delicate dish or a rare wine. I have a heart and a pair of eyes, and enjoy looking at a pretty woman. I like to feel her firm, round bosom, press her lips with mine, drink pleasure from her eyes and die of it in her arms. I am not averse to a night out with my men friends sometimes, and even a pretty rowdy one. But I won't hide the fact that it is infinitely more pleasureable for me to have helped the unfortunate, successfully concluded some tricky bit of business, given some good advice, read something pleasant, taken a walk with a man or woman I am fond of, spent a few instructional hours with my children, written a worthwhile page, fulfilled the duties of my position, said some tender, soft words to the woman I love and made her love me." - pp 66-67
Personally, I can enjoy the above things too - but coming inside a woman's vagina has a special place in those pleasures that makes it stand out.
"I have some soft notes which I accompany with a smile and an infinite variety of approving faces, with nose, mouth, eyes and brow all brought into play. I have a certain agility with my hips, a way of twitching my spine, raising or lowering my shoulders, shutting my eyes and being struck dumb as though I had heard an angelic, divine voice come down from heaven. That's what gets them. I wonder whether you appreciate the full power of this last attitude. Watch it. Look.
"I: It certainly is unique.
"HE: Do you think any somewhat vain female brain can resist it?
"I: No. I must say you have taken the talent for making fools of people and bootlicking as far as it will go." - p 74
It seems that Rameau's nephew was a sort of Elvis Presley of the Baroque era. These days he'd probably just get the girls stoned & dispense w/ the talent.
"You hear nothing but names such as Buffon, Duclos, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot, and God knows what epithets coupled with them. Nobody is allowed to have any brains unless he is as stupid as we are." - p 80
"This speech is a sustained piece of invective against enemies of the Encyclopaedic movement, whether wealthy people with vested interests in ignorance or reaction or their abject tools, the army of unsuccessful writers and professional scandalmongers (today we might call them gossip columnists)." - p 129 -
In the last year or so, I (re)read three quite different philosophical works -- MacIntyre's
After Virtue, Williams's
Truth and Truthfulness, and Foucault's
Madness and Civilization -- all of which reference this and put forward interesting interpretations of it. So I thought I'd read it. I wasn't particularly blown away by it, although there were a few interesting things that struck me. Most of all, Rameau's Nephew reminded me of
Ignatius Reilly, which, in light of Foucault's view of Rameau's Nephew as emblematic of modern madness, is kind of interesting. At any rate, here is what the interpreters I mentioned say about it:
- For MacIntyre, Rameau's Nephew stands alongside Kierkegaard's "A" in a tradition of "those who see in the social world nothing but a meeting place for individual wills, each with its own set of attitudes and preferences and who understand that world solely as an arena for the achievement of their own satisfaction, who interpret reality as a series of opportunities for their enjoyment and for whom the last enemy is boredom," (AF p. 25; see also pp. 47-48). In other words, Rameau's Nephew is one of those hollow, stunted emotivist-individualist selves of the decaying modern world that MacIntyre seeks to redeem or eliminate by making Thomistic Aristotelianism great again.
- For Williams, Rameau's Nephew, by embodying or showcasing Rousseau's notion of sincerity, reveals the limits of the Rousseauian truthful self and points the way to a different conception of the truthful self that is aimed at achieving authenticity. "On Diderot's view... it is a universal truth, not just a special feature of modernity, that human beings have an inconstant mental constitution that needs to be steadied by society and interaction with other people. Different people, and people in different circumstances, are steadied by these forces to a greater or lesser degree; modernity, perhaps, makes it specially hard, or hard in a special way, to steady them. This picture of the mind implies that it has relations to other people and to society that are quite different from any imagined by Rousseau, and this implies different conceptions of both sincerity and authenticity," (T&T pp. 139-140).
- For Foucault, Rameau's Nephew marks the (re)emergence in the 18th century of the madman as a social individual. "In doubt's confrontation with its major dangers, Descartes realized that he could not be mad—though he was to acknowledge for a long time to come that all the powers of unreason kept vigil around his thought; but as a philosopher, resolutely undertaking to doubt, he could not be 'one of these insane ones.' Rameau's Nephew, though, knew quite well—and among his fleeting certainties, this was the most obstinate—that he was mad... A curious thing: the unreason that had been relegated to the distance of confinement reappeared, fraught with new dangers and as if endowed with a new power of interrogation... this was the first time since the Great Confinement that the madman had become a social individual; it was the first time that anyone had entered into conversation with him, and that, once again, he was questioned. Unreason reappeared as a classification, which is not much; but it nonetheless reappeared, and slowly recovered its place in the familiarity of the social landscape."
Of the three interpretations, I find Williams's to be the most insightful and helpful; Foucault's to be the most entertaining and exuberant; and MacIntyre's to be (characteristically) the most dour and irritating. -
"Man is merely a frequent effect, a monstrosity is a rare one, but both are equally natural, equally inevitable, equally part of the universal and general order" (p. 181). Thus raves the renowned and historical scientist d'Alembert in his sleep, after discussing with Diderot the consequences of a purely materialist account of life. So with startling precocity Diderot gives us the dreadful consequences of the anti-spiritual side of the Enlightenment. Romanticism is refuted in advance: "Mademoiselle, this vaunted quality of sensibility, which never leads to anything great, is hardly ever cultivated without causing pain, or dabbled in half-heartedly without causing boredom: you either yawn or are intoxicated" (213), says the doctor called to attend d'Alembert, the voice of reason in this dialogue. What about self-respect, shame, and remorse? "Childish notions founded on ignorance and vanity" (218), he informs us.
This all starts with an inquiry about how life can arise from non-living matter, and how one person emerges from an assemblage of individual molecules. The conversation roams over spontaneous generation, the evolution of species (another precocious idea), life on Saturn, and the details of female genitalia. The main idea is that a kind of "sensitivity" must be an attibute of all matter; it is expressed only when the matter is arranged into a form capable of life. A kind of postscript conversation covers the absurdity of chastity, the benefits of masturbation, and the possibilities of interspecies sex--it is proposed to create a breed of hybrid goat-men to become a servant class. It's hard to know how serious Diderot was. Needless to say, none of this was published in his lifetime. It just circulated in manuscript among his friends, evaded destruction only by lucky chance, and emerged many decades after Diderot's death.
These dialogs are sometimes said to be unclassifiable, but they seem straightforward and traditional philosophical works to me, in the tradition of Plato. They explore philosophical ideas though a reported conversation, and the revealed character of the speakers is part of the exploration. "Rameau's Nephew" explores the character of someone who lives out Diderot's philosophy. He is cheerful and cynical, without conscience, morals, malice, ambition, or illusions, and lives by mooching off the Parisian intelligentsia. It is at once amusing, enthralling, and appalling. It is only slightly marred by the frequent references to contemporaneous names now totally forgotten. -
I won't give a detailed review on this one. This book contains two short essays, which both were published posthumously. As the translator mentions in both introductions, there is a lot of obscurantism about the meaning of these texts: were they though experiments by Diderot? Were they statements about his personal beliefs? How should we interpret these texts?
I for one couldn't make anything of it. Diderot has a lot of subliminal messages and references to contemporary events, persons and opinions - this makes it incredibly hard for a modern reader to fully grasp these texts (even with endnotes). Both texts are relatively short - you can easily read them in one afternoon - but understanding what they mean (if at all possible, see my earlier remark) takes a lot longer. I didn't trouble myself with doing this.
I chose to read some of Diderot's work, of which this book was the last, because I want to understand the Enlightenment better. So instead of reading the umpteenth interpretation of this historical period by some philosopher or historian, I decided to go straight to the source and read the original works. But where I was (postively) amazed by Rousseau, I am just as amazed (but negatively) by Diderot. I don't like his writing style, I don't like his many references, I don't like his stylistic choices (including those in the other two books) and in general, I don't think Diderot has as much to say as a Voltaire or Rousseau. Not to mention the fact that these two contemporary philosophers had a much more pleasant writing style.
In general, reading La Religieuse, Jacques le Fatalist and Le Neveu de Rameau/le Rêve d'Alembert was a boring task. I took some valuable insights from the two other books, but this book was too obscure for my taste. The only positive thing is that all of these books can be read in one day - so the waste is time spend on them is minimal. -
Each work I finish of Diderot's push him deeper into my mind/soul, and higher in my esteem of his amazing range and intellect. Such a range and intellect can be found in Rameau's Nephew and D'Alembert's Dream.
In Rameau, a dialog between what one may assume is Diderot and Rameau's Nephew, a sycophant describes his views on music and society. The discussion also digs into moral values and attacks opponents of the Encyclopedie. We wear many masks and take on different roles as the situation requires. For some of us, that may mean many roles with accompanying reputations and recriminations. For others, maybe less. "Each of us bears his own hell"
D'Alembert's Dream, allows a glimpse at science and values in dialog form. Diderot pushes his materialist determinism vs. the conventional morality of the time. Explorations of man and the bases of his behavior as an individual and in society. -
I have a real sneaky admiration for Diderot: a giant of the French Enlightenment, editor of the first Encyclopedia and all-round know-it-all. Unfortunately, there is too much in this Greek style philosophical conversation between himself and the nephew of the composer Rameau that is either generally dated or consisting of musical in-jokes to make it an exciting read. That is not to say that there is not plenty to admire here: society sponger Rameau is a glib, talented character cravenly playing the jester and he sparks off nicely as an Epicurean to Diderot's dour Stoic. Unpublished in his lifetime, this feels like a comfortable bolt hole for Diderot, something to return to when the muse absented herself, perhaps to try out ideas or let off steam and as such, it is a pretty classy doodle pad.
-
How was this written two and a half centuries ago?
-
Rameau's Nephew is a dialogue, a casual discussion between Me, the narrator, philosopher, and Him, Jean-François Rameau, nephew of the famous composer Jean-Philippe Rameau
Part of a very specific historical context, that of the charge of the anti-philosophers against the authors of the Encyclopédie: Diderot, d'Alembert, Voltaire, Rousseau, those who are called the Philosophers of the Enlightenment. What is at stake in this dispute? Irritated by the admiration that the Philosophers have for King Frederick II of Prussia at the time of the Seven Years' War, Choiseul, the prime minister of Louis XV, launches a cabal against them. Choiseul accuses Diderot in 1758 of having looted the boards of Réaumur for the Encyclopédie and plagiarized Goldoni in his play Le Fils naturel. The Philosophers are supported in particular by Madame de Pompadour and Malesherbes, director of the bookstore, who finally obtains tacit permission to print the Encyclopedia. Fréron is the most dangerous antiphilosopher, but it is Charles Palissot, protege of Choiseul and friend of Voltaire, who is animated by a very particular grudge against Diderot. He devotes himself to “unmasking the sophists of time”. At the head of the antiphilosophical cabal, he particularly attacks Diderot as the leader of the Encyclopédie. Palissot condemns the intolerance of the Philosophers and their partisanship: “The enthusiasm for the new Philosophy was carried so far that the slightest joke that one could allow oneself on any of its followers was treated as an irremediable crime. »
This debate marks the advent of a new elite who wish to play a national role and whose rival clans clash, each claiming to distribute glory and lead public opinion. As leader of the Encyclopédie, Diderot is particularly attacked, ridiculed, criticized, persecuted. He is criticized for his jargon, his pedantry. He promises not to write a word of retaliation, but his strongest response will be Rameau's Nephew.
The first dialogue brings D'Alembert and Diderot together. Diderot is here at the height of the development of his materialist theories. He expounds his theory on life and nature. He indicates that matter is not fixed, and that on the contrary, it evolves: each existing species is transformed and gives birth to a new species.
D'Alembert's Dream presents a discussion between Doctor Bordeu and Miss Julie de Lespinasse on the notions of reality, illusion, myth and dream. D'Alembert appears only in the final pages. Diderot's materialism intends to demonstrate that the impossible is, by negligence, too quickly relegated outside of reality, and that only the methodical study of a fact, within the framework of an experiment, makes it possible to apprehend what is and what is not. However, each new experience can call into question the conclusions of a previous one, because man is fallible and the method can be tainted. When D'Alembert comes to insinuate that abstractions exist beyond the opposition between materialism and dream, Bordeu opposes to him that all abstraction is based on signs of language which are nothing less than a reality.
Extending the conclusions of the first two dialogues, the Continuation of the interview between D'Alembert and Diderot places itself on moral ground. D'Alembert having gone to dinner outside, Mademoiselle de Lespinasse offers Doctor Bordeu a glass of Malaga, then a little coffee and the conversation turns to the notions of purity and the mixing of species. The subject allows Diderot to expose the value of interbreeding, not only in botany, but for the animal kingdom. And the dialogue addresses the question of mores and sex which, strictly speaking, and without the trivialities of pusillanimity, repugnance, laws and prejudices, allow no restriction. Imperceptibly, the subject slips on homosexuality and Dr. Bordeu concludes that: All that is can be neither against nature nor outside of nature; I do not even except voluntary chastity and continence, which would be the first crimes against nature, if one could sin against nature. -
D’Alembert’s Dream by Denis Diderot
My review below is of the second half of this book, D’Alembert’s Dream. A few days ago I posted my review of Rameau’s Nephew. Whereas Rameau’s Nephew is a kind of work of philosophy, D’Alembert’s Dream is more a work of science – early science because it was written around the mid 1700’s. It’s fascinating to hear some of the early thinking about Big-Picture Science, so I’ll focus on that, especially some intriguing metaphors Diderot came up with.
A hundred years before Darwin’s Origin of Species, Diderot is writing about the rise and decline of species, how they can grow and adapt and how extinct species can perhaps re-appear in the future.
He talks about a cluster of bees hanging off each other as a type of societal organism.
He writes a bit about genetic oddities such as conjoined twins, and he recognizes that genes can skip generations, what is known today as recessive genes.
Diderot writes an extended metaphor about our senses being connected by nerves to our brain like a spider web. He envisions normal people with the center in control, but aberrations, people driven by impulses, as people whose sense organs dominate and overrule the center.
He recognizes that as we go through life our cells and molecules are all replaced over time and yet somehow we remain the same person. He attributes this to memory and gives an example of how monasteries develop and maintain a certain culture over centuries because the monks get replaced one by one and each neophyte learns the new system without changing it.
Diderot says our thinking and memories are connected like vibrating musical strings where one plucked string sets others in motion.
By explaining all these ideas in the context of a discussion among three people (a doctor, a philosopher and a society matron), Diderot adds some interest to what could otherwise be a pretty dull science book. The book was written on and off between 1760 and 1780. The three characters were real people that he knew. They were insulted when they heard bits and pieces of the words Diderot was putting in their mouths, so that made it impossible for the author to publish the book in his lifetime. (Same with Rameau’s Nephew.) That makes me wonder why didn’t he just invent fictitious names for these characters?
A science book, not a novel, and perhaps its greatest value is to a historian of science. Anyway, I found it quite intriguing. He even speculates about “could God grow old and die?“
Diderot (1713–1784) was a French philosopher and writer of the time of the Enlightenment, best known for creating the first comprehensive French Encyclopedia, for which he wrote 7,000 entries. (A one-man Wikipedia!)
Top sketch of a chemistry lab in 1780 and an early version of the periodic table from Diderot's Encyclopedia from knarf.english.upenn.edu
The author from media.sciencephoto.com -
Değerli Çevirmen Adnan Cemgil'in yıllar önce Fransızca'sından çevirdiği "Felsefe Konuşmaları"nı, Fransız filozof Diderot'un dünya felsefe yazınında tartışılmaz bir iz bırakan yapıtını Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları yeniden yayınlıyor! Diderot'un "Felsefe Konuşmaları" yapıtı dünyadaki tüm felsefe okullarında bir ders kitabı olarak da kullanıldı, kullanılıyor. Diderot, "Felsefe Konuşmaları"nda, D'Holbach, D'alembert gibi Fransız filozofları ile tartışmalarını da yansıtıyor, bu açıdan 18. Yüzyıl Aydınlanma Çağı Fransız felsefesinin bir özeti, bir raporu gibi. Diderot, "Felsefe Konuşmaları"nda, eski Yunan filozoflarının, eski Çin filozoflarının tartıştıkları, yazdıkları sorularla ilgili fikirlerini açıklıyor, "madde ile ruh" çelişkisinin felsefe tarihi süresince filozofların düşündüğü bir çelişki olarak Fransız felsefesinde nasıl çözümlendiğini yazıyor, "diyalektik maddeci" metodolojinin modern çağdaki en önde gelen filozoflarından biri olarak Diderot "Felsefe Konuşmaları"nda "diyalektik maddeci" metodolojisini uyguluyor. Diderot, "Felsefe Konuşmaları", doğa felsefesi ile toplum felsefesinin bir gün mutlaka "sentez"leneceğini yıllar sonra Almanya'da yazan Karl Marx'ın öncüsü olduğunu bize açıklayan birçok sayfalar var, Diderot'ya göre, doğa felsefesi ile toplum felsefesi "metafizik" bir çelişki olarak kavranamaz, Aristoteles gibi düşünüyor Diderot da, doğa felsefesi ile toplum felsefesi "diyalektik" bir metodoloji ile "sentez"lenmelidir, "sentez"lenir de!
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Kitap üç diyalogdan oluşuyor. Yazımda tercih ettiği diyalog yöntemi ise, bu başlıkta bir kitap için tesadüf olmamalı. İlk diyalogda, -adlarını geçirmemekle birlikte- antik dönem doğabilimci filozofların görüşüne paralel şekilde pre-sokratlardan Heraklit ve atomcu Demokritos’un ayak izleri görülüyor. Bu bölümde ele aldığı konularda ontolojik ve özellikle teleolojik argümanlar ana odak noktası. Darwinci evrime yönelik öncül denebilecek notları ise şaşırtıcı.
İkinci diyalogda, bir ateistin dindar biriyle, ahlak felsefesi üzerine tartışması ele alınmış. Üçüncüsü ise, agnostik görüşlü birinin başrahip kimliğiyle boy gösteren biriyle varlık ve yine ahlak felsefesi üzerine, harareti üst seviyede karşılıklı argümanlarını içeriyor. İçlerinde belki de en keyiflisi olan bu son bölümde konular, ele alınış şekilleriyle David Hume’un nedensellik ilkesi ile birlikte Pascal bahsine gönderme ve Spinoza panteizminin izlerini taşıyor.
Felsefe Konuşmaları Diderot’un, arkaikler dahil felsefe tarihinde kendi dönemine kadar bilinen bir çok filozofu sıkı takip ettiği belli olan, bu eseri oluştururken de onlardan edindiği görüşleri akılcı bir sentezle yerli yerine oturttuğu düşüncelerine yer verdiği eseri. Esinlendiği yukarıdaki kişiler hakkında giriş niteliğinde de olsa okuyucunun ön bilgi edinmesi, kitaptan alınacak keyfi arttıran bir unsur olabilir. -
Much of Diderot’s work was considered too scandalous to publish in his lifetime and was privately circulated (not that there is anything that scandalous to contemporary eyes about much of it).
This short work is simply a philosophical dialogue between two people in a cafe otherwise full of chess players. The conversation is both meant to address real ideas but is also an ironic look at that trope of philosophical writing. It is intentionally hard to be sure what to take seriously.
The Rameau of the title is Jean-François Rameau, a Parisian literary figure of the time, nephew of the more famous composer. Living in that shadow shapes his worldview somewhat, though I don’t we should regard either the first-person narrator or his interlocutor as exactly Diderot or Rameau.
D’Alembert’s dream follows a similar pattern but has four characters spread out over several conversations and is considerably bawdier and challenging to the mores of the time. -
Review of Rameau's Nephew:
This short novel is a conversation between Rameau's nephew and his friend, known simply as "myself". It's philosophical and moral in nature, with music mixed in. Rameau's nephew asserts that he wants all the best things by doing the least amount of actual work, and doesn't feel he's doing anything wrong nor compromising himself to do so. "Myself" takes the opposing view, that material things aren't the pinnacle to be attained, and being a person of moral character and good reputation is more important.
Rameau's Nephew was not published during Diderot's lifetime. He names several politicians, artists, actors, and well-known personages of the time, and it is thought he didn't publish because he didn't want to embarrass them (or himself?). I didn't enjoy reading it, but it's mercifully short.
Food: a raw oyster. I do not enjoy raw oysters, but at least the experience is over quickly. -
I only gave this work three and one-half stars because I found it a difficult read. Still, 250 years doesn't deaden the interesting philosophy of Diderot. I've had this book on my shelf since college, where I skimmed enough of it to make the Professor think I'd read it in full. It's remained there till now in the futile attempt to make me look smart. Both works are interesting in their modernity, and in their challenges to conventional thought and morality of late 18th century France. I've always found the "dialogue" format to be difficult to follow, but Diderot makes it more of a play. Would recommend to those very interested in the history of philosophy
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Su gibi akıp giden düşüncelere doyduk ya. Ne güzel böyle sohbet havasında derin toz bulutlarını yakalayıp üstüne düşünmek.
“Öldüğümde de moleküllerimle etkilenip tepkiler vereceğim… Yani hiç ölmeyecek miyim?.. Hayır, şüphesiz ki bu anlamda ne ben ölüyorum, ne de herhangi bir şey… Doğmak, yaşamak ve ölmek, şekil değiştirmekten başka bir şey değildir… Şu veya bu şeklin ne önemi var? Her şeklin kendine özgü mutlulukları ve felaketleri vardır… Filden çiçekbitine… çiçekbitinden her şeyin başlangıcı olan canlı ve duyarlı moleküle varıncaya kadar doğada acı çekmeyen ve zevk almayan hiçbir şey yoktur.”
