Ep. 390: Diderot Debates a Cynic (Part Two)
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Continuing on Rameau's Nephew, getting further into Rameau's philosophy and practices and trying to figure out what this anti-hero can tell us about ethics, given that he displays the virtue of being candid about his own vices.
We talk about "trade idioms" (unethical practices that we consider normal), education, and music. How does this reading relate to Hegel (who quotes it directly)?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to Partially Examine Life, episode 390, part two on Diderot's Ramo's nephew. |
| 0:14.3 | I think we're only about 12 pages into this text so far, up to page 20, because there's an intro. But yeah, we're getting to, |
| 0:23.5 | there's some plot here in that we've been talking about genius. We've been talking about in general |
| 0:29.5 | what being a fool is and introducing the idea of virtue in the real world where you have to |
| 0:35.5 | make a living in a society that involves sucking up |
| 0:38.6 | to people and not just stating anything, not being entirely authentic. The reason that he's out |
| 0:44.4 | here walking, I guess, Ramo is because he was kicked out of his house. So there's a little bit |
| 0:49.9 | of, you know, more going into his own situation and the sorts of things that he had to do in his job. |
| 0:55.7 | Yeah. |
| 0:56.0 | So, I mean, he just going forward, Ramo laments not being as bad as he has the talent for being. |
| 1:04.0 | So he has these wasted talents. |
| 1:06.3 | So, for instance, you know, he knows the, you know, say something like, you know, |
| 1:09.8 | if I can only lick boots like the rest of the people, rest of the people, or if I, you know, he knows the, you know, say something like, why, you know, if I can only lick boots like the rest of the people, rest of people, or if I, you know, could use my |
| 1:14.7 | talent for pimping, right, for someone could pay me to seduce a girl for him and then deliver |
| 1:20.3 | her, he could be much, much worse than he is. And so he suffers from self-contempt. |
| 1:27.2 | It's what she calls the worst torment of the soul and the cruelest form of remorse. |
| 1:31.3 | Here I am. |
| 1:32.3 | I could be so perfectly evil, but I'm not. |
| 1:35.3 | And this is the thing that on page 23, Deereux will call perversion of feeling. |
| 1:39.3 | It's this phrase that Hegel picks up on. |
| 1:42.3 | Hegel talks about this idea of the perversion of feeling for this type of consciousness. |
| 1:48.1 | And then Ramo moves on to this idea, well, despite all of this, I'm, death is the great |
... |
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