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Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville
Les protagonistes du dialogue de Diderot, A et B, discutent du Voyage autour du monde du navigateur français Louis Antoine de Bougainville récemment paru (en 1771). B propose de parcourir un prétendu Supplément qui remet en question certaines prétendues évidences énoncées par Bougainville, premier français ayant fait le tour du monde. Deux passages de ce Supplément sont enchâssés dans la discussion : Les adieux du vieillard, et le long Entretien de l'aumônier et d'Orou.
Source: fr.wikipedia.org
Source: fr.wikipedia.org
128 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1773
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547 people want to read
About the author
Denis Diderot
2,487 books588 followersWork on the
Encyclopédie
(1751-1772), supreme accomplishment of French philosopher and writer Denis Diderot, epitomized the spirit of thought of Enlightenment; he also wrote novels, plays, critical essays, and brilliant letters to a wide circle of friends and colleagues.
Jean le Rond d'Alembert contributed.
This artistic prominent persona served as best known co-founder, chief editor, and contributor.
He also contributed notably to literature with Jacques le fataliste et son maître (Jacques the Fatalist and his Master), which emulated Laurence Sterne in challenging conventions regarding structure and content, while also examining ideas about free will. Diderot also authored of the known dialogue, Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew), basis of many articles and sermons about consumer desire. His articles included many topics.
Diderot speculated on free will, held a completely materialistic view of the universe, and suggested that heredity determines all human behavior. He therefore warned his fellows against an overemphasis on mathematics and against the blind optimism that sees in the growth of physical knowledge an automatic social and human progress. He rejected the idea of progress. His opinion doomed the aim of progressing through technology to fail. He founded on experiment and the study of probabilities. He wrote several articles and supplements concerning gambling, mortality rates, and inoculation against smallpox. He discreetly but firmly refuted technical errors and personal positions of d'Alembert on probability.
Jean le Rond d'Alembert contributed.
This artistic prominent persona served as best known co-founder, chief editor, and contributor.
He also contributed notably to literature with Jacques le fataliste et son maître (Jacques the Fatalist and his Master), which emulated Laurence Sterne in challenging conventions regarding structure and content, while also examining ideas about free will. Diderot also authored of the known dialogue, Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew), basis of many articles and sermons about consumer desire. His articles included many topics.
Diderot speculated on free will, held a completely materialistic view of the universe, and suggested that heredity determines all human behavior. He therefore warned his fellows against an overemphasis on mathematics and against the blind optimism that sees in the growth of physical knowledge an automatic social and human progress. He rejected the idea of progress. His opinion doomed the aim of progressing through technology to fail. He founded on experiment and the study of probabilities. He wrote several articles and supplements concerning gambling, mortality rates, and inoculation against smallpox. He discreetly but firmly refuted technical errors and personal positions of d'Alembert on probability.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
August 28, 2015
In giving this short philosophical work a rating I am faced with a dilemma: I found it very interesting, and agreed with most of the principles guiding it, but cannot adhere to all of the conclusions reached – even if Diderot keeps well away from forming an absolute conclusion. The depiction of the liberal lifestyle of the Tahitian people is pleasantly open-minded, denouncing the unnatural rules of European society at the time, but comes to reduce mankind's existence to its biological functions. Man's search for transcendence and creation of symbols is labelled as superfluous – love is reduced to a lust only legitimate when driven by the urge to reproduce. Diderot's recipe for liberty ends up seeming more restrictive and reductive than civilisation, which he so boldly blames. The Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville is definitely food for thought, and it contains a few amusing scenarios which bring vitality and interest to the ideas behind it.
February 4, 2024
bien nul bien diderot (g rien compris)
October 3, 2025
Lecture complémentaire à mon cours de philo, j’ai trouvé ce livre vraiment intéressant sur bcp de points abordés, notamment le sujet principal : la remise en question de nos sociétés et de nos mœurs, mais aussi les réflexions faites sur les femmes.
Ce texte m’a rappelé les dialogue de Platon dans sa construction. Par ailleurs il est compréhensible, ce que j’ai également apprécié. J’aurais seulement aimé que ce soit un petit peu plus long, afin qu’il développe un peu plus certains arguments/points.
Ce texte m’a rappelé les dialogue de Platon dans sa construction. Par ailleurs il est compréhensible, ce que j’ai également apprécié. J’aurais seulement aimé que ce soit un petit peu plus long, afin qu’il développe un peu plus certains arguments/points.
February 28, 2025
3.75 stars
Wow I thought Princesse de Clèves was progressive for its time this is another level. He makes a lot of really good points. Go Diderot. It was a little too short and not enough happened for 4 stars but otherwise very good.
Wow I thought Princesse de Clèves was progressive for its time this is another level. He makes a lot of really good points. Go Diderot. It was a little too short and not enough happened for 4 stars but otherwise very good.
October 8, 2024
Je vois ce qu’a tenté Diderot de faire, mais son œuvre a mal vieillit.
February 3, 2016
J'ai vraiment aimé ce dialogue entre ces deux personnages, je l'ai lu en quelques heures et j'ai trouvé le sujet très intéressant surtout en parallèle avec mon cours de francais !
October 8, 2023
Et bah en vrai c’était pas si maaaalll. Juste je pense j’ai pas tout capté.
Read
April 3, 2024je ne vais pas faire de commentaire sinon je vais être méchante
January 25, 2022
Mitigée sur ce livre. Certes un avis qui vient du XXIème siècle sur la consistance de la réflexion et de l’innovation n’a pas beaucoup de sens, mais quand même: j’ai voulu arrêter mille fois ceux qui dialoguaient pour leur dire mon point de vue, pour leur montrer les manquements des leurs (quelle audace de ma part n’est-ce pas?).
La conclusion, qui plus est, n’est pas des plus incroyables. L’auteur, pour moi, ne sait pas discerner ce qui relève du naturel de ce qui relève du societal. Il indique que les choses à valoriser sont celles naturelles mais il dit quand même que la morale, faire le bien et s’éloigner du mal est le plus important, pensée éminemment dictée par la société et la religion. Sa conclusion : il ne faut pas commettre le châtiment, l’ignominie et la honte parce que ce sont les plus grands de tous les maux (sic). Je ne suis pas sure d’être d’accord, encore faudrait-il que l’auteur développe cette idée.
La conclusion, qui plus est, n’est pas des plus incroyables. L’auteur, pour moi, ne sait pas discerner ce qui relève du naturel de ce qui relève du societal. Il indique que les choses à valoriser sont celles naturelles mais il dit quand même que la morale, faire le bien et s’éloigner du mal est le plus important, pensée éminemment dictée par la société et la religion. Sa conclusion : il ne faut pas commettre le châtiment, l’ignominie et la honte parce que ce sont les plus grands de tous les maux (sic). Je ne suis pas sure d’être d’accord, encore faudrait-il que l’auteur développe cette idée.
March 14, 2021
Franchement... c est sympa
October 29, 2025
J’AI FINI je pense avoir compris l’essentiel
April 20, 2026
J’ai rien compris singerie
Read
April 1, 2026Nevermind I have changed my opinion. Though first of all French men need to pay reparations to Polynesian women forever.
Ok so I my mind kept going back to More's Utopia as I worked my way through this Supplement. Both texts stage encounters between a (corruption-ridden, morally bankrupt) empire and (naive yet skillful and wise) "savages". The emissaries of the empire remark that, as shocking as some of the practices of the "savages" might seem (incest, communitarianism), these practices are only illustrative of a more natural, and thus uncorrupted, moral order, and as a result, a superior political order, too. This is the first argument made, folded through irony and destabilizing provocation: a critique of religion and the current political order. In the Supplement, in particular, this argument implies agnosticism but most importantly condemns a political order made up of erratic "magistrates and priests." To obey them is to mutilate the judgement of one's passions, therefore abandoning one's claim to (this is implied) autonomy for the sake of obediente: in the process, you become "neither a man, nor a citizen, nor a true believer. You become nothing" The other obvious counterhegemonic critique comes from this first one: colonialism bad. The more interesting way this point is made is when one of the Tahitians says that in this island they practice a sort of utopian colonialism. They have deep relations with the Europeans, both literally (commercial exchange on equal footing) and figuratively: their women sleep with Europeans to create a new mixed race, a decolonial miscegenation/eugenics project. What is going on? We will come back to this.
We remark, though, in both Utopia and the Supplement there is an acknowledgement that political life begins in human passion. In general that is the first problem in political philosophy. Here pride (for Utopia), eros (in the Supplement) and self-interest (in both) need to be positioned within social structures that render them useful, that harness them towards prosocial interdependence. We have to remark on just how much the Supplement is a treatise about sexuality and the political question of reproduction. And one could say that in attempting to construct a critique of a society that treats its women as property (Europe), Diderot still cannot imagine a utopia in which women's lives, and society at large, are not circumscribed within patriarchal forms. In this, too, the Supplement is similar to More's Utopia, where women are subjugated to the husband and expected to perform most of their labor within the private sphere. Most of this is ascribed, explicitly for Diderot and implicitly for More, on the "fact" of biological difference and the demographic need for reproduction. But moved by this belief, which is rather a failure of the imagination, Diderot's "primitive" society circulates its young women as public goods, their sexual freedom only an instrument for a fundamentally male sexual order. This opens the door for the return of the corrupt civilization he claims to reject: give these Tahitians a couple of centuries and they'll come up with commodities, too.
That's one thing you could say. But I think, if we are looking already at the question of sexuality, it's worth looking at the use of taboo within the text: the Tahitians are incestuous, it is implied that their free embrace of sex encompasses rape and pedophilia. We could assume that Diderot does believe unambiguously in the merits of a "natural" social order and unrestrained passion, that we too would be happy if we had sex with our siblings and our kids; he is French, after all. But taboo is the first rupture through which we can see the real shape of the text. Another rupture is tone, especially in the monologue-lament of the village elder in the second or third chapter, a seemingly earnest condemnation of European's desecration of indigenous culture that plays the trope of the noble savage straight, thus making fun of itself. Taboo, tone, these are the elements through which Diderot forces the reader to acknowledge the game of fantasy and illusion that he has been playing all along.
In this way Diderot prefigures postmodernism and psychoanalysis. Through most of the book he is performing Europe's subconscious. The Tahitian elder's monologue, for instance, has nothing to do with actual Tahitians; we are reminded that it is a translation of a translation just as someone remarks that these "savages" sound "rather European." This monologue is a hallucination of the European mind, a comment on how it is wholly conscious of the unjustified horror it's imparting on its colonies, on how it is corroded with guilt about it, on how it is weak and unable to see reality because it is wrecked with pride. The portrayal of the Tahitians is a critique of Rousseau's conception of the "primitive" as well as the long early modern attempt to contend with the role of natural law in political organization. The long conversation between the chaplain and the young Tahitian man is deconstructing the "state of nature" by showing that even when we think we talk about "savages," we can only imagine wholly civilized men, and we can only imagine them after ourselves.
Seen in this way, not as a text that is making its argument via inversion and ridicule but rather a text anatomizing the mind of Europe as it works around questions of empire, morality, political order and eros -- seen like this, we can think, for instance, of Diderot's Tahitian patriarchal order as a mockery of Rousseau's and Hobbes' flawed attempts to reason from the state of nature. Though Diderot is not looking to free himself from the burden of judgment - the case is clearly made for a reform of European society, especially of the relationship between church and state, and the appeal to free passions is also made in earnest in a way that prefigures Civilization and Its Discontents. Perhaps the clearest example Diderot's judgement in action is the recounting of the young prostitute's pleas to forgo punishment: what did she do wrong except love a man and, in bearing his child, give the king more subjects? This passage comes to us wholly unmediated, and it argues for a political order that frees itself from a corrupt elite and embraces eros. But it argues FOR A POLITICAL ORDER. It defends the refinement of modern European life, salons and coffee shops and so on. It's not as primitivist as it might seem on a first read; in fact, it is not primitivist at all. This is what I have found most compelling about reading early modern political theory: how it uses the instability of satire to advance an argument, an argument aimed at the public, in a way that does not come across as moralistic, does not come across as pedagogical, in a way that is productive and compelling and sharp. I've rarely felt a text so forcefully making me rise to its level.
Ok so I my mind kept going back to More's Utopia as I worked my way through this Supplement. Both texts stage encounters between a (corruption-ridden, morally bankrupt) empire and (naive yet skillful and wise) "savages". The emissaries of the empire remark that, as shocking as some of the practices of the "savages" might seem (incest, communitarianism), these practices are only illustrative of a more natural, and thus uncorrupted, moral order, and as a result, a superior political order, too. This is the first argument made, folded through irony and destabilizing provocation: a critique of religion and the current political order. In the Supplement, in particular, this argument implies agnosticism but most importantly condemns a political order made up of erratic "magistrates and priests." To obey them is to mutilate the judgement of one's passions, therefore abandoning one's claim to (this is implied) autonomy for the sake of obediente: in the process, you become "neither a man, nor a citizen, nor a true believer. You become nothing" The other obvious counterhegemonic critique comes from this first one: colonialism bad. The more interesting way this point is made is when one of the Tahitians says that in this island they practice a sort of utopian colonialism. They have deep relations with the Europeans, both literally (commercial exchange on equal footing) and figuratively: their women sleep with Europeans to create a new mixed race, a decolonial miscegenation/eugenics project. What is going on? We will come back to this.
We remark, though, in both Utopia and the Supplement there is an acknowledgement that political life begins in human passion. In general that is the first problem in political philosophy. Here pride (for Utopia), eros (in the Supplement) and self-interest (in both) need to be positioned within social structures that render them useful, that harness them towards prosocial interdependence. We have to remark on just how much the Supplement is a treatise about sexuality and the political question of reproduction. And one could say that in attempting to construct a critique of a society that treats its women as property (Europe), Diderot still cannot imagine a utopia in which women's lives, and society at large, are not circumscribed within patriarchal forms. In this, too, the Supplement is similar to More's Utopia, where women are subjugated to the husband and expected to perform most of their labor within the private sphere. Most of this is ascribed, explicitly for Diderot and implicitly for More, on the "fact" of biological difference and the demographic need for reproduction. But moved by this belief, which is rather a failure of the imagination, Diderot's "primitive" society circulates its young women as public goods, their sexual freedom only an instrument for a fundamentally male sexual order. This opens the door for the return of the corrupt civilization he claims to reject: give these Tahitians a couple of centuries and they'll come up with commodities, too.
That's one thing you could say. But I think, if we are looking already at the question of sexuality, it's worth looking at the use of taboo within the text: the Tahitians are incestuous, it is implied that their free embrace of sex encompasses rape and pedophilia. We could assume that Diderot does believe unambiguously in the merits of a "natural" social order and unrestrained passion, that we too would be happy if we had sex with our siblings and our kids; he is French, after all. But taboo is the first rupture through which we can see the real shape of the text. Another rupture is tone, especially in the monologue-lament of the village elder in the second or third chapter, a seemingly earnest condemnation of European's desecration of indigenous culture that plays the trope of the noble savage straight, thus making fun of itself. Taboo, tone, these are the elements through which Diderot forces the reader to acknowledge the game of fantasy and illusion that he has been playing all along.
In this way Diderot prefigures postmodernism and psychoanalysis. Through most of the book he is performing Europe's subconscious. The Tahitian elder's monologue, for instance, has nothing to do with actual Tahitians; we are reminded that it is a translation of a translation just as someone remarks that these "savages" sound "rather European." This monologue is a hallucination of the European mind, a comment on how it is wholly conscious of the unjustified horror it's imparting on its colonies, on how it is corroded with guilt about it, on how it is weak and unable to see reality because it is wrecked with pride. The portrayal of the Tahitians is a critique of Rousseau's conception of the "primitive" as well as the long early modern attempt to contend with the role of natural law in political organization. The long conversation between the chaplain and the young Tahitian man is deconstructing the "state of nature" by showing that even when we think we talk about "savages," we can only imagine wholly civilized men, and we can only imagine them after ourselves.
Seen in this way, not as a text that is making its argument via inversion and ridicule but rather a text anatomizing the mind of Europe as it works around questions of empire, morality, political order and eros -- seen like this, we can think, for instance, of Diderot's Tahitian patriarchal order as a mockery of Rousseau's and Hobbes' flawed attempts to reason from the state of nature. Though Diderot is not looking to free himself from the burden of judgment - the case is clearly made for a reform of European society, especially of the relationship between church and state, and the appeal to free passions is also made in earnest in a way that prefigures Civilization and Its Discontents. Perhaps the clearest example Diderot's judgement in action is the recounting of the young prostitute's pleas to forgo punishment: what did she do wrong except love a man and, in bearing his child, give the king more subjects? This passage comes to us wholly unmediated, and it argues for a political order that frees itself from a corrupt elite and embraces eros. But it argues FOR A POLITICAL ORDER. It defends the refinement of modern European life, salons and coffee shops and so on. It's not as primitivist as it might seem on a first read; in fact, it is not primitivist at all. This is what I have found most compelling about reading early modern political theory: how it uses the instability of satire to advance an argument, an argument aimed at the public, in a way that does not come across as moralistic, does not come across as pedagogical, in a way that is productive and compelling and sharp. I've rarely felt a text so forcefully making me rise to its level.
December 11, 2016
Hyper intéressant malgré une misogynie latente.
December 15, 2019
Je l'ai étudié en cours de littérature pour le baccalauréat. Obligation scolaire oblige. Sinon je ne l'aurai jamais lu.
Je n’ai d’ailleurs pas accroché à l’histoire et au style misogyne de Diderot.
Je n’ai d’ailleurs pas accroché à l’histoire et au style misogyne de Diderot.
August 14, 2018
Ce livre a été une déception où les femmes sont considéres comme des objects pour faire des enfants et les noires comme une sous-race
February 24, 2026
Je me suis endormie…
March 4, 2026
4,75 stelle
Un'opera breve ma essenziale, ritengo che tutti dovrebbero leggerla e non ci sono scuse vista proprio la brevità.
Incredibile pensare come sia stato scritto già a fine XVIII secolo, eppure i suoi temi sono tutt'altro che superati:
colonialismo, religione, morale e usanze, istituto del matrimonio, e molti altri ancora.
Chiaramente su alcuni punti minori (ad esempio il ruolo della donna inteso sempre e solo come madre, sull'incesto alla luce di quello che sappiamo oggi sulle tare ereditarie) un lettore odierno avrebbe da ridire, ma essendo che Diderot non vuole "insegnarci" bensì esortarci a riflettere, allora non pesano troppo queste sottigliezze. Soprattutto perché l'opera nel suo complesso è di una modernità disarmante: nel 1773 Diderot difendeva il diritto della donna di non ricevere punizioni per avere avuto figli al di fuori del matrimonio, metteva in discussione il ruolo del matrimonio stesso nella società, esponeva le contraddizioni delle leggi umane e religiose, ridicolizzando ad esempio il celibato nei preti cattolici, e tante altre ancora. Ebbene mi chiedo quale sia la scusa di molte persone per continuare a difendere l'indifendibile (e screditare chiunque provi anche solo a metterlo in dubbio) ancora nel 2026?
Chiaro, Diderot non è un uomo qualunque, è uno dei pensatori Illuministi più brillanti del suo tempo, nonché "padre" dell'Enciclopedia; ma proprio per questo vorrei che si leggesse e parlasse di più di quest'opera: la semplicità con cui vengono trattati temi tanto complessi in questo classico li rende abbordabili a chiunque.
Inoltre la struttura dei 5 capitoli è molto interessante in quanto appartengono a generi diversi, rendendo di difficile catalogazione il genere letterario; il Supplemento al viaggio di Bouganville è un po' discorso filosofico, un po' utopia, e merita sicuramente di essere un classico..
Uno dei miei capitoli preferiti è l'intervento dell'anziano Tahitiano che con rabbia denuncia il colonialismo, mi ha fatto venire la pelle d'oca.
Non do 5 stelle solo perché avendolo letto in lingua originale ho fatto un po' di fatica a comprendere il capitolo finale, (che ironicamente la guida dell'edizione commentata definisce la parte più leggera e mondana)... ci tornerò magari più avanti leggerndolo in italiano per vedere se ne ho colto tutte le sfumature.
Un'opera breve ma essenziale, ritengo che tutti dovrebbero leggerla e non ci sono scuse vista proprio la brevità.
Incredibile pensare come sia stato scritto già a fine XVIII secolo, eppure i suoi temi sono tutt'altro che superati:
colonialismo, religione, morale e usanze, istituto del matrimonio, e molti altri ancora.
Chiaramente su alcuni punti minori (ad esempio il ruolo della donna inteso sempre e solo come madre, sull'incesto alla luce di quello che sappiamo oggi sulle tare ereditarie) un lettore odierno avrebbe da ridire, ma essendo che Diderot non vuole "insegnarci" bensì esortarci a riflettere, allora non pesano troppo queste sottigliezze. Soprattutto perché l'opera nel suo complesso è di una modernità disarmante: nel 1773 Diderot difendeva il diritto della donna di non ricevere punizioni per avere avuto figli al di fuori del matrimonio, metteva in discussione il ruolo del matrimonio stesso nella società, esponeva le contraddizioni delle leggi umane e religiose, ridicolizzando ad esempio il celibato nei preti cattolici, e tante altre ancora. Ebbene mi chiedo quale sia la scusa di molte persone per continuare a difendere l'indifendibile (e screditare chiunque provi anche solo a metterlo in dubbio) ancora nel 2026?
Chiaro, Diderot non è un uomo qualunque, è uno dei pensatori Illuministi più brillanti del suo tempo, nonché "padre" dell'Enciclopedia; ma proprio per questo vorrei che si leggesse e parlasse di più di quest'opera: la semplicità con cui vengono trattati temi tanto complessi in questo classico li rende abbordabili a chiunque.
Inoltre la struttura dei 5 capitoli è molto interessante in quanto appartengono a generi diversi, rendendo di difficile catalogazione il genere letterario; il Supplemento al viaggio di Bouganville è un po' discorso filosofico, un po' utopia, e merita sicuramente di essere un classico..
Uno dei miei capitoli preferiti è l'intervento dell'anziano Tahitiano che con rabbia denuncia il colonialismo, mi ha fatto venire la pelle d'oca.
Non do 5 stelle solo perché avendolo letto in lingua originale ho fatto un po' di fatica a comprendere il capitolo finale, (che ironicamente la guida dell'edizione commentata definisce la parte più leggera e mondana)... ci tornerò magari più avanti leggerndolo in italiano per vedere se ne ho colto tutte le sfumature.
December 27, 2021
Ce roman évoque la dénonciation de Diderot des mœurs et des lois dans les pays européens, via la discussion entre un vieux tahitien, gardien ancestrale de sa culture et l'aumônier de l'expédition de Bougainville, représentant de l'ancien monde avec ses traditions, ses lois et leurs modes de vie.
A travers ce récit, Diderot nous amène à s'apercevoir qu'il n'y a pas qu'un mode de vie où les gens sont heureux et arrivent en communauté et que l'homme vivant selon la nature, ne serait-ilpas un homme libre alors que l'homme civilisé ne serait-il pas prisonniers des lois civiques et morales établis par les magistrats, mais plus à leurs convenances et moins pour protéger le peuple.
Diderot dit en gros qu'il y a 3 lois dans le monde civilisé. La loi naturelle, civique et religieuse et que les 3 ne peuvent survivre ensemble, que si l'une prend le pas et que les autres s'adaptent à elle. Mais le souci dans la société, c'est que le respect d'un type de loi amène à transgresser parfois un autre type ce qui rendrait l'européen moins civilisé que l'homme appartenant aux tribus. Une des phrases de l'œuvre de Diderot n'est-elle pas "la transgression d'une mauvaise loi par certains amène à la transgression des bonnes lois."
D'ailleurs, certaines réflexions du vieillard tahitien ébranle certaines convictions de l'aumônier et l'amène à être un peu plus critique par rapport aux mœurs européens.
Cela va même amener, en plus du fait de sa jeunesse, l'aumônier à faire un acte pêcheur et condamnable par rapport" à sa religion, à son état" mais qui a une autre signification chez les autochtones tahitiens.
A travers, ce dialogue, il y a une vraie réflexion philosophique, sur un concept nouveau : l'humanisme.
A travers ce récit, Diderot nous amène à s'apercevoir qu'il n'y a pas qu'un mode de vie où les gens sont heureux et arrivent en communauté et que l'homme vivant selon la nature, ne serait-ilpas un homme libre alors que l'homme civilisé ne serait-il pas prisonniers des lois civiques et morales établis par les magistrats, mais plus à leurs convenances et moins pour protéger le peuple.
Diderot dit en gros qu'il y a 3 lois dans le monde civilisé. La loi naturelle, civique et religieuse et que les 3 ne peuvent survivre ensemble, que si l'une prend le pas et que les autres s'adaptent à elle. Mais le souci dans la société, c'est que le respect d'un type de loi amène à transgresser parfois un autre type ce qui rendrait l'européen moins civilisé que l'homme appartenant aux tribus. Une des phrases de l'œuvre de Diderot n'est-elle pas "la transgression d'une mauvaise loi par certains amène à la transgression des bonnes lois."
D'ailleurs, certaines réflexions du vieillard tahitien ébranle certaines convictions de l'aumônier et l'amène à être un peu plus critique par rapport aux mœurs européens.
Cela va même amener, en plus du fait de sa jeunesse, l'aumônier à faire un acte pêcheur et condamnable par rapport" à sa religion, à son état" mais qui a une autre signification chez les autochtones tahitiens.
A travers, ce dialogue, il y a une vraie réflexion philosophique, sur un concept nouveau : l'humanisme.
October 14, 2025
hyper interessant formellement (dialogues imbriqués, A et B qui sont des personnages différents mais uniquement par ce qu’ils expriment (ils n’ont pas de personnalité, et d’ailleurs ce qu’ils expriment change sans cohérence pour représenter diff pdv)
Sur le fond je vois en quoi ça pouvait être révolutionnaire pour l’époque (anticolonialisme, mythe du bon sauvage, anti clergé, critique des mœurs européennes, réflexion sur la morale sexuelle poussée jusqu’à labsurde etc etc)
mais certains points m’ont trop gênée :
Par ex l’idée que la liberté est quelque chose qu’on a tous en nous et qu’on peut la retrouver comme si c’était une émotion innée
Autre ex il essentialise l’homme et la femme à leurs natures biologiques
Et j’en passe
Je passe aussi sur la femme-objet pcq bon déjà le relativisme des cultures c’était pas mal pour l’époque faut pas trop en demander !!!!!
Sur le fond je vois en quoi ça pouvait être révolutionnaire pour l’époque (anticolonialisme, mythe du bon sauvage, anti clergé, critique des mœurs européennes, réflexion sur la morale sexuelle poussée jusqu’à labsurde etc etc)
mais certains points m’ont trop gênée :
Par ex l’idée que la liberté est quelque chose qu’on a tous en nous et qu’on peut la retrouver comme si c’était une émotion innée
Autre ex il essentialise l’homme et la femme à leurs natures biologiques
Et j’en passe
Je passe aussi sur la femme-objet pcq bon déjà le relativisme des cultures c’était pas mal pour l’époque faut pas trop en demander !!!!!
October 20, 2019
To support Enlightenment era goals and values, Diderot makes the vulnerability and inadequacy of Europeans central to his analytical narrative, and does so in a genius way. Completely radical for the time-- actually suggests that "primitive" life, that is, life in proximity to nature, is closer to what European life should be. Riveting dialogue, well articulated opinions. Although it is a potentially difficult read due to the hyper-sexualized and misogynistic nature of the content, I feel strongly that it is worth it, even if just to appreciate his satire and metaphors.
September 24, 2023
Un chef-d'œuvre. Diderot dépeint une société dans laquelle nous pouvons nous reconnaître. Ses écrits, presque trois cents ans plus tard, restent d'actualité, et nous donnent des leçons de vie mémorables.
Read
April 21, 2026"But I know it has
frequently been remarked that townsmen will cast aside everything
and return to the forest, while no one has ever seen a man of the
forest get dressed and come to settle in town."
frequently been remarked that townsmen will cast aside everything
and return to the forest, while no one has ever seen a man of the
forest get dressed and come to settle in town."
March 17, 2020
(Paper 3 Prelims French Oxford)
July 4, 2020
A very good book from a famous french philosopher from the 18th century. The fact that he uses a real story to denounce colonization is for me the pro of the book!
October 23, 2020
Très philosophique
June 26, 2021
la tolérance? Du jamais vu avant ce livre
September 16, 2021
te amo dideroooot
November 6, 2021
simple french. read this I'd you think Thanksgiving is a good holiday
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