Some epistemological issues in Madeleine de Scudéry's conversation

Abstract

In 17^th-Century France, the conversation was a social practice and a literary form associated with entertainment and a certain “spirit of joy”, to quote Madeleine de Scudéry. This usage may have obscured the way in which de Scudéry employs conversation, namely, to transmit and develop knowledge in various fields, including that of moral philosophy. We propose here to show how a study of the conversations “de la connaissance des autres et de soi-même” and “de l’incertitude” casts a new light on the poetic and aesthetic principles of Scuderian conversation, by emphasizing their epistemological issues. Indeed, the Scuderian conversation can in fact be viewed as the formal translation of a dialogical and empirical epistemology.