Rousseau

The article explores the question of whether Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a libertarian or a totalitarian and, in the process, hopes to bring some clarity to much of the apparent confusion in the literature on the question. As one of the 18th century social contract theorists emerging from the Enlightenment movement, he was most well-known for his promotion of the general will which advocates contended showed his inclination towards popular and democratic governance. On the other hand, critics point to the absolutist tendency that accompanies membership once an individual consents to be part of the community. This essay explores the terms for each of these tendencies, the context in which Rousseau offered his solutions, and the temperament of the times in which Rousseau lived, including Rousseau's own personal temperament that no doubt affected his dispositions. 

Résumé - Le présent article se propose de reconstruire la dialectique entre nécessité et liberté dans l’œuvre de Rousseau – du Discours sur l’inégalité à La profession de foi – à partir de l’analyse de La Morale sensitive ou le Matérialisme du sage, «écrit fantôme» projeté durant le séjour à l’Ermitage du 1756. Dans cette oeuvre inachevée Jean-Jacques se proposait d’enquêter sur l’influence que les objets extérieurs ont nécessairement sur l’intériorité de l’être humain pour, ensuite, envisager une réforme de l’âme axée sur la possibilité de «forcer l’économie animale à favoriser l’ordre moral». On tentera de montrer ici comment le rêve intellectuel consistant à garantir la liberté morale par le biais de la nécessité physique a profondément influencé l’évolution de la dialectique rousseauiste entre nécessité et liberté, d’un niveau biologico-anthropologique à un niveau plus strictement philosophique. Le défi de Rousseau consiste à expliquer l’influence nécessaire du physique sur le moral, tout en sauvegardant – par la définition d’un dualisme spécifique – la liberté absolue de la dimension morale, ainsi que son caractère spécifique de qualité humaine.

Abstract - This article aims to reconstruct the dialectic between necessity and freedom in the work of Rousseau – from his Discourse on Inequality to his Profession of Faith – setting out from the analysis of Sensory Morality or the Materialism of the Sage, a project dating from his stay at the Ermitage in 1756. In this incomplete work Jean-Jacques intended to inquire into the influence that external objects necessarily have on the interiority of human beings in order then to envisage a reform of the soul based on the possibility of «forcing the animal economy to favour the moral order». We shall attempt here to show how the intellectual dream consisting in guaranteeing moral freedom through physical necessity profoundly influenced the evolution of Rousseau’s dialectic between necessity and freedom, from a biological-anthropological level to a more strictly philosophical level. Rousseau’s challenge consists in explaining the necessary influence of the physical on the moral, while maintaining – by means of the definition of a particular dualism – the absolute freedom of the moral dimension, as well as its specific character as a human quality.

Drafted by Pasquale Paoli and others and inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Drafted by Pasquale Paoli and others and inspired by Rousseau, the Corsican Constitution was one of the first codified national constitutions of an independent republic in the modern age. In his Project for a Constitution for Corsica, Rousseau is reflecting not as a jurist in matters of right, but as a political theorist through considerations of expediency and effective design focusing on the act of political founding.

A people who have lost their freedom to a foreign oppressor might try to transmit their identity through education. The people could simply substitute tales of national greatness for the greatness that was lost, but in that case, it is collective power and independence that remain the central values. I want to explore the possibility that values might be transformed by the new emphasis on education, and that education could serve as the subject matter of politics instead of conquest and defense. Through an examination of Aristotle and Josephus, I aim simultaneously to interrogate the value of collective freedom, and the value of collective identity after freedom is lost.

"Cette étude vise à tracer les contours des méthodes philosophiques chez Rousseau. Nous employons le terme « méthode » comme la manière de réfléchir sur quelque chose. Pour ce faire, comme méthodologie de cette étude, nous avons examiné la réaction rousseauiste des méthodes de Condillac et Hobbes, parce que Rousseau n’a pas clairement et systématiquement proposé sa propre méthode. Ensuite, notre étude fait converger deux termes qui sont des méthodes fondamentales dans le dix-huitième siècle : l’analyse et la généralisation. Pourquoi ces deux méthodes sont importantes pour Rousseau ? Parce qu'elles sont indispensables pour connaître « la théorie de l’homme » et établir la philosophie politique comme on la trouve dans Discours sur l’inégalité et Du Contrat social. Jusqu’à présent, l’importance des méthodes rousseauiste semble négligée ou n’est pas épuisée dans les recherches précédentes. Au contraire, on croit qu’il n’y a pas de méthode philosophique dans la pensée de Rousseau, parce que Rousseau est un homme inspiré par la nature ; par exemple, l'illumination de Vincennes le montre. Cependant, dans cette étude, nous avons essayé de replacer Rousseau dans une économie de méthode au dix-huitième siècle. Par ces travaux, nous avons vérifié son geste critique sur la méthode analytique de l’empiriste. Il la ne rejette pas totalement, mais plutôt veut l’améliorer"

Rousseau's Reveries of a Solitary Walker is enigmatic. It reveals many influences and addresses even more themes. For these reasons and others, political theorists have tended to ignore it in favour of his more overtly political works. Yet to dismiss his last work is to neglect what might be a useful tool in unlocking his political theory. This article argues that the Reveries confirm what many have recently suggested-- that Rousseau is a Platonist in many important respects. Further, it holds that his particular brand of Platonism as espoused in the Reveries provides essential epistemic information necessary to carry out his democratic politics--indeed, one far more democratic than Plato's, yet consistent with a Platonic metaphysics.

Historians of political thought have been puzzled by Montesquieu's simultaneous appeals to the diversity of human practices and eternal norms of justice. Isaiah Berlin famously referred to this as an impassable “contradiction” burdening his work. Careful examination of Rousseau's appropriations from and developments on Montesquieu, however, reveal that these observations are not merely reconcilable—they provide a fruitful way to approach legislation and constitution drafting. This is accomplished by understanding his employment of the principle of transcendent constrained indeterminacy.

Patrick Riley has argued that Immanuel Kant was the 'most adequate' of the social contractarians. This reputation was built on Kant's reliance on ideas rather than actual consent to give the contract its legitimacy. The greatest advantage in his so doing was to limit the potential of tyrannical or despotic regimes. A danger resides in this approach, however: by ignoring actual consent, one may not get the compliance required to achieve these standards. In this respect, by interpreting Rousseau as likewise committed to ideas, Kant may be bettered by his Genevan predecessor, since Rousseau incorporates both ideas and actual consent. This combination serves the dual function of promising compliance to high ideas -- and in this respect Rousseau might actually be the 'most adequate' of social contract theorists.

From the public burnings of the Social Contract occurring immediately following its publication, to Isaiah Berlin's condemnation of Rousseau as "the most sinister and most formidable enemy of liberty in the whole history of modern thought," Jean-Jacques Rousseau has rarely held universal favor among his commentators. The most common charge against him was, and remains, that he provided the essential philosophic tools for the modern tyrant. While this position has numerous and illustrious advocates, I argue that it fails to take into account the whole of Rousseau's thought. Specifically, it ignores his extensive attention to the problem of political power and his attempts to control it with checks and balances. In focusing on Rousseau's specific proposals in his Government of Poland, it is evident that the purpose of his system is to prevent tyranny, rather than to promote it.

I argue that the positivist reading of Rousseau is flawed. Indeed, my thesis is that he is among the greatest and most thorough Platonists of the modern era. His rejection of Hobbes is not merely rhetorical. In fact, it represents the true impetus of his social contract. This contract is designed explicitly to counter Hobbesian positivism. In the same way that Plato responds to Protagoras' positivism with his theory of the Forms, Rousseau responds to Hobbes's brutish Leviathan with a morally grounded social contract. To this extent, he is following in the footsteps of Locke who through his theory of natural law also hoped to avoid the problems associated with Hobbes's positivism. Unlike Locke, however, he appeals to the abstract Idea of Justice, rather than a determinate set of rules. To do this, he necessarily rests upon a later version of Platonic Forms—one that is both transcendent and indeterminate.  He does this, I argue, by placing the idea of Justice prior to the General Will itself. In understanding Rousseau this way, we are able to make new sense of the standards to which the General Will must conform and his frequent references to the Idea of Justice.

If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it was banished from France. Soon thereafter, Rousseau fled to Geneva, where he saw the book burned in public. At the same time, many of his contemporaries, such as Kant, considered Rousseau to be “the Newton of the moral world,” as he was the first philosopher to draw attention to the basic dignity of human nature. The Social Contract has never ceased to be read in the 250 years since it was written. Rousseau's “Social Contract”: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text. David Lay Williams offers readers a chapter-by-chapter reading of the Social Contract, squarely confronting these interpretive obstacles, leaving no stones unturned. The conclusion connects Rousseau's text both to his important influences and those who took inspiration and sometimes exception to his arguments. The book also features a special extended appendix dedicated to outlining his famous conception of the general will, which has been the object of controversy since the Social Contract's publication.

Although its origins stem from theological debates, the general will would ultimately become one of the most celebrated and denigrated concepts emerging from early modern political thought.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau would make it the central element of his political theory, and it would take on a life of its own during the French Revolution before being subjected to generations of embrace or opprobrium.  James Farr and David Lay Williams have collected for the first time a set of essays that track the evolving history of the general will from its origins to recent times.  These essays include attention to the general will’s theological, political, formal, and substantive dimensions with a careful eye to the concept’s virtues and limitations as understood by its expositors and critics, among them Pascal, Malebranche, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Constant, Tocqueville, Adam Smith, and John Rawls.