Saying by Implicature: The Two Voices of Diderot in La Lettre sur les aveugles

Abstract

Saying by Implicature: The Two Voices of Diderot in La Lettre sur les aveugles MARY BYRD KELLY In Diderot's Lettre sur les aveugles, a number of voices speak. Diderot reports a conversation that he and his companions had with the blind man of Puiseaux. The mathematician Saunderson and the pastor Holmes exchange arguments concerning the existence of God and the nature of the universe. Thinkers such as Molyneux and Locke are cited for their opinions on epistemological matters, and unnamed adversaries reply. Di­ derot even quotes the words of a hypothetical metaphysician and a hypo­ thetical geometer as each experiences for the first time the sight of objects that he had known before only by touch. Like Diderot's later explicitly dialogic works, the Lettre is a polyvocal text whose philosophical point is to a certain extent dramatized.1 The literary critic might appeal to speech act theory to examine the in­ dividual conversations in the Lettre in order to clarify its philosophical point.2 One might also extend the analysis and consider the entire letter as an act of speech performed by the author for the benefit of the reader.3 The Lettre, with its embedded conversations and quotations, would itself be considered as one-half of a conversation (the author's half), or as an extended remark made to a silent interlocutor (the reader). In the text, however, the reader speaks as well as the author. The objections of the lady to whom the letter is addressed are cited and then refuted. Diderot writes, for example: Mais qu'entendez-vous par des expressions heureuses, me demanderez-vous peut-etre? Je vous repondrai, Madame, que ce sont celles qui sont propres a un sens. ... (p. 41) 231 232 / KELLY Nous voila bien loin de nos aveugles, direz-vous; mais il faut que vous ayez la bonte, Madame, de me passer toutes ces digressions: je vous ai promis un entretien, et je ne puis vous tenir parole sans cette indulgence, (p. 45) Et toujours des ecarts, me direz-vous: Oui, Madame, c'est la condi­ tion de notre traite. (p. 66)4 Taking his reader one step further, Diderot does not fail to exploit a cer­ tain silence that carries the value of words that are spoken by the lady but which do not appear in the text. This occurs when he evokes the need for a language by touch for those born deaf, blind, and mute: "Ce language, Madame, ne vous parait-il pas aussi commode qu'un autre? n'est-il pas meme tout invente? et oseriez-vous nous assurer qu on ne vous a jamais rien fait entendre de cette maniere? Il ne s'agit done que de le fixer et d'en faire une grammaire et des dictionnaires . . ." (p. 34). The done in this passage signals the concurrence of the lady with Diderot's own point of view, making an explicit answer unnecessary. The role of such interven­ tions by the reader, whether explicit or merely implied, is to challenge the author actively. The reader affords the author the opportunity to defend his work within the work. The Lettre is thus more than a letter; it is its own reply and its own rebuttal to that reply. Its implicitly dialogic or con­ versational nature lends itself to analysis according to speech act theory. There is further justification for considering the Lettre as a conversa­ tion suited to the proposed method of analysis. In a passage cited earlier, Diderot uses the term entretien to refer to the letter. Similarly, at the close of the letter, the verb entretenir appears: "Je ne devine pas pourquoi le monde ne s'ennuie point de lire; et de ne rien apprendre, a moins que ce ne soit par la meme raison qu'il y a deux heures que j'ai l'honneur de vous en­ tretenir, sans m'ennuyer et sans vous rien dire" (p. 72). The amount of time mentioned is significant in that two hours is the time required to read the letter aloud.5 Given that the text is intended to be spoken as it is read, and given the dialogic function attributed to it by its...