Rousseau (review)

Abstract

258 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Maximilian Forschner. Rousseau. Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 1977. Pp. 221. This is one of those "introductions" with an eye to those already introduced. In many respects it is an effective presentation of Rousseau's political thought. Forschner manages , with considerable adroitness, to give thematic continuity to his chronological discussion of the major works. The First Discourse and its polemical offshoots lead effortlessly to the "materialistic" philosophy of history of the Second Discourse (p. 161). This philosophy is then applied to the property rights conferred both by the inequitable social contract at the end of the Second Discourse and by the constitution envisaged in the Discourse on Political Economy. According to Forschner, the formal right of property is determined by the contract alone. The material rightness of the social order, however, is determined by the historically conditioned effects of that contract on the capacity of the contractees freely to determine their existence within a harmonious collective system of needs and resources (cf. pp. 47, 80-83). The formal and material conditions of such self-determination, and therefore of a morally as well as formally legitimate state, are the theme of the Social Contract (p. 59). But since the conditions specified in that work are nearly always lacking in reality, one must also know how to live in an uncivil society, an institutionalized collection of individuals but no true polls. The best way of life for these circumstances is outlined in Emile, which portrays the formation of a "natural," but not asocial individual. The later autobiographical writings are taken to indicate the abandonment of this ideal in favor of an imaginative autism. Forschner does an exceptionally good job of unifying Rousseau's work into a coherent theory of history, society, politics, and morals. Most people could probably find reasons for saying that the theory is not Rousseau's, but the author of a wide-ranging introductory work can hardly be expected to pre-empt all his critics. Unfortunately, after all allowances have been made, there are three defects that prevent Forschner's book from being a good introduction to Rousseau9 The first flaw is minor but disconcerting: Forschner is given to sudden and inexplicable outbursts of historical arm-waving. Thus on the first page of the text we are told how, by challenging the prevailing Zeitgeist, "Rousseau in his First Discourse places himself in a tradition linked with such names as Diogenes the Cynic, as Socrates, Jesus, Seneca, Cato, or even Francis of Assisi" (p. 7). Mercifully this line of inquiry is not pursued, but then why initiate it? Why bother, a little while later, to treat amour de sol as a "naturalistic " development (p. 31), via Hobbes, of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Thomist conceptions of love--all in one paragraph and without any textual comparisons? Forschner's allusions are probably based on considerable study, but they provide nothing but a guide for the pretentious. Second, though Forschner never shrinks from citing thorny passages, he has a tendency to gloss over the difliculties they present. Take, for example, his treatment of the well-known salute to property in the Discourse on Political Economy: 9 le fondement du pacte social est la propri~t6, et sa premiere condition, que chacun soit maintenu dans la paisible jouissance de ce qui lui appartient.' This passage threatens to mar Forschner's portrayal of Rousseau as critic of Lockean natural rights by suggesting that Rousseau did indeed share Locke's views on individual property. After citing equally familiar passages which give the contrary impression i Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres compldtes, Bernard Gangebin and Marcel Raymond, eds., 4 vols. to date (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 3:269f. Henceforth 0(2 3. BOOK REVIEWS 259 (OC 3 :367, 391), Forschner attempts to exorcise the offending statement by means of his above-mentioned distinction between (positive, contractual) "formal" right and (substantial , moral) "material" right, which makes rough equality of possessions the precondition of a truly just state (pp. 60f.). The trouble is that Forschner always speaks as if it is material right that really counts: zit is always "not merely formal but material" rather than vice versa (pp. 47, 61). He admits, however, that a universally accepted law...