1991
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Annie Ibrahim, « Sur l'expression chez Diderot, autour du Paradoxe sur le comédien et des Pensées sur l'Interprétation de la nature », Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, ID : 10.3406/rde.1991.1101
Annie Ibrahim: The Question of Expression in Diderot, with Reference to Le Paradoxe sur le comédien and Pensées sur l'Interprétation de la nature. This article attempts to analyse the difficult question of Diderot's reflexion on the question of expression, with particular reference to two very different discussions, in Le paradoxe sur le comédien, and Pensées sur l'interprétation de la Nature. Diderot's conceptualisation of the problem is incomplete as he only presents a model of expression and approaches the problem through that of the imitation of a hidden natural unity. To show how these two texts lead up to a generalized æsthetics characterising his whole work, Diderot's treatment of the question of disorder and monsters in nature is traced through his works, from the Pensées philosophiques onwards, while Bordeu's Encyclopédie articles indicate a method for interpreting nature, and a semiotics implying the unity of the living organism.