ABSTRACT
Diderot explores the notion of la pantomime du monde to its full extent only in Le Neveu de Rameau, a text which thematically and chronologically, from 1762-1782, encases the work on the Paradoxe. In Le Neveu de Rameau, Diderot unravels and expands Rousseau's sociological notion of alienation, interlocking it with his own materialist philosophy, and with aesthetic and sociological considerations. The Philosopher, and 'Lui', Rameau's Nephew, agree on one point: every social being acts according to the expectations of another. Social dependency leads to forms of behaviour and being that belong to the theatre: pretence, hypocrisy, manipulation and self-consciousness. The consequence of Diderot's hermetic conception of social alienation is an aesthetic that foregrounds the experiential and subjective levels of perception. The epistemological aim of recognition in a Diderotian method of alienation uses constructively a passive and subjective experience of alienation.
