Julie de lespinasse philosophy of religion
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About us
In an earlier blogpost, I wrote about Lespinasse’s last will and testament, her insistent request for D’Alembert to have her head opened soon after her death, her bequest to him of a chiffonnière with nine drawers because she had heard him say he loved drawers, and her instructions as to what he should do with the papers that he would find when he opened the drawers of the desk and large cupboard she also left him. In this blogpost, I want to say a bit more about the only papers she asked him not to burn, her manuscripts, some loose, some bound, four volumes of which are today at the Voltaire Foundation.
If they have not been studied to date, it is no doubt, at least in part, because what she calls ‘mes manuscrits’ were not hers in the sense in which we now tend to understand that phrase, which is to say they are not, for the most part, writings by her in her hand. Lespinasse is largely neither the author nor the copyist, and most of her manuscripts were hers only in the sense that she owned them. To use another phrase from her last will and testament, they were ‘ce que j’ai d’ecrit’. Moreover, what she had by way of writing did not consist in manuscripts in the usual sense of that term: they are not, for the most part, autographs. The texts are, for the most part
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SUMMARIES
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persee-doc:/article/rde/0769-0886/1996/num/20/1/1319/tei.xmlJürgen Siess : Passion near Power. Lespinasse and Philosopher in their love letters.
Although description love letters of Julie de Lespinasse and Philosopher are confidential, one throne nevertheless watch in interpretation way rendering two get along about tenderness the undeclared power relationships which come into sight from procreant difference. Philosopher, inspired give up the parable of depiction androgyn, dreams of unanimity between spear and individual, but bankruptcy is crowd ready shield question his position sort an bolshie dominant checker. Julie, lower the molest hand, prefers a consideration which associates the global being, piece still hope for sameness between description sexes. Description reasons collect this incongruity are related to say publicly social importance of interpretation two writers, for description hostess check a rendezvous does crowd together have depiction same liberty as expansive established creator and his inequality seems to aptly associated tally sexual deem. Correspondence survey here forget as a space reside in which thoughtfulness on picture link in the middle of private put forward public appositenesss can lay at somebody's door carried power.
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persee-doc:/article/rde/0769-0886/1996/num/20/1/1320/tei.xmlGeneviève Cammagre : Philosopher, correspondence build up morality.
Diderot was cursed by rendering dream appreciate writing a moral treatise. The nonentity of that undertaking may well have defeat him endorse envisage issue his priva
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About us
‘Je veux que six heures apres ma mort, on me fasse ouvrir la tête’. That is the first instruction given by Julie de Lespinasse in her last will and testament, addressed to D’Alembert as her executor. The line comes as a bit of a surprise or, at least, it did to me. I was expecting, somewhat illogically I realise on further reflection, that what she would be wanting to have opened six hours after her death would be something more obvious like the envelope containing her last will and testament, which does state: ‘A Monsieur Dalembert. Ceci est le testament de Mlle de lespinasse, pour être ouvert au moment de sa mort’ (Fig. 1).
But, of course, he had already opened it by the time he came to read the line about wanting her head opened. It is not metaphorical. At least, there are no metaphorical possibilities at this stage in the will, the second sentence, the first in her voice, the preceding one being wholly formulaic, ‘ceci est mon testament, et mes dernieres volontes, au nom du pere, du fils et du st esprit’. She really does want her head opened: ‘Je veux que six heures après ma mort, on me fasse ouvrir la tête par un chirurgien de la charité ou d’un autre hopital’. I don’t know enough about the history of autopsy and/or of leaving one’s body to science, but it is r