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In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French authors experienced great frustration in attempting the classical genre of philosophical dialogue. They attributed their failures to either shortcomings in modern character or tediousness in classical dialogues. Denis Diderot, though, proved the “impossible” genre possible. In the three dialogues of D’Alembert’s Dream he makes what happens conceptually on the level of philosophy happen mimetically on that of literature. Conceptually, his dialogues argue for a materialism that denies any mind-body distinction; mimetically, the characters Doctor Bordeu and Julie de L’Espinasse develop an intimacy that travels back and forth between body and mind through an erotics of talk that leaves Julie flush with fresh intellectual confidence and Bordeu in need of a hasty bodily retreat.

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Finding One’s Voice: Talk, Knowledge, and Intimacy in Diderot’s D’Alembert’s Dream

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Rudolphus Teeuwen

摘要

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French authors experienced great frustration in attempting the classical genre of philosophical dialogue. They attributed their failures to either shortcomings in modern character or tediousness in classical dialogues. Denis Diderot, though, proved the “impossible” genre possible. In the three dialogues of D’Alembert’s Dream he makes what happens conceptually on the level of philosophy happen mimetically on that of literature. Conceptually, his dialogues argue for a materialism that denies any mind-body distinction; mimetically, the characters Doctor Bordeu and Julie de L’Espinasse develop an intimacy that travels back and forth between body and mind through an erotics of talk that leaves Julie flush with fresh intellectual confidence and Bordeu in need of a hasty bodily retreat.