Il Nipote di Rameau, nostro contemporaneo. Letture diderotiane

The underlying theme of this paper is the demonstration of the centrality of the « Satire seconde », Le Neveu de Rameau, in Diderot’s philosophical thought. Le Neveu is the work that is, in some way, the expression of his higher synthesis. Starting from the outline provided by a series of questions posed by an investigation of the Diderot philosophe, as the author expresses it better than anyone else L’Esprit des Lumières (title of a dvd released in France in 2013, on the occasion of the tercentenary of his birth), through a synthesis of the essential characteristics of the entire work of the philosopher, finally one can try to capture the current value of the figure of the ‘failed genius’ of Neveu, moral monster whose characters : cynicism, ruthlessness, immorality, hypocrisy and so on, have become essential in the government of the civil societies of the twenty-first century. In the staging of the nihilism of this character, grandson of the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (uncle), particular importance have the observations of Diderot on money and gold, as the only engines of human affairs, and on alienation that binds to it indissolubly.