Rousseau's Political Philosophy Research Articles

‘Réformez vos contrats!’: From the Marriage Contract to the Social Contract in Louise Dupin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I trace key arguments of Jean–Jacques Rousseau's political philosophy to Louise Dupin's Ouvrage sur les femmes to reveal that early modern feminist thought contributed directly to social contract theory. Rousseau applied Dupin's mockery of the marriage contract to dismiss as fraudulent the political contract that previous natural law philosophers had imagined between subjects and sovereign. He then made mutually exclusive property the foundation of the republican social contract, just as Dupin had stipulated separately owned property as the condition of equality in marriage. Yet Rousseau rejected the feminist content of Dupin's arguments, despite incorporating her strategies. Paradoxically, while Dupin, a monarchist, construed marriage along the egalitarian lines of a friendship based on ‘la douceur du commerce', the republican Rousseau invested men with the douceur of the absolute sovereign, masking the contractual character of marriage by positing women’s subordination to men as a matter of passionate attachment.

Aesthetic Reason and Imaginative Freedom: Friedrich Schiller and Philosophy ed. by María del Rosario Acosta López and Jeffrey L. Powell

Reviewed by: Aesthetic Reason and Imaginative Freedom: Friedrich Schiller and Philosophy ed. by María del Rosario Acosta López and Jeffrey L. Powell Sabine Roehr María del Rosario Acosta López and Jeffrey L. Powell, editors. Aesthetic Reason and Imaginative Freedom: Friedrich Schiller and Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2018. Pp. 217. Cloth, $90.00. In the past, Schiller has often been underestimated as a philosopher in his own right. Fortunately, this has been changing, beginning with the bicentennial commemoration of his death in 2005, which has since then produced a fair number of volumes, mostly in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Unfortunately, Frederick Beiser's 2005 Schiller the Philosopher: A Re-Examination, one of the still rare book-length treatments by a single author, has failed to lead to a similar "new wave" in the English-speaking world (3). Thus, it is heartening to have here a volume of essays focusing on his philosophical writings and bringing together titans of the fields of philosophical Schiller-studies, German early romantic aesthetics, and German idealism, such as Beiser, Daniel Dahlstrom, and Manfred Frank, together with a younger generation of Schiller scholars. What makes this compilation additionally useful is the fact that its editors have not shied away from providing several essays in translation, thereby opening access to readers for whom they might otherwise be inaccessible. As a short review such as this cannot possibly do justice to all essays in this collection, I can only try to mention in radically abbreviated form some of the contributions that offer important or novel approaches. Yvonne Nilges's reconstruction of Schiller's implicit references to Rousseau's political philosophy is most instructive for us modern readers, for whom they might be no longer obvious. The same goes for María del Rosario Acosta López's essay, which shows that Schiller's Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man as a critique of the French Revolution holds its own in comparison to Hegel's in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Frank's "Schiller between Kant and Schelling," first published in German in 2007, provides the indispensable grounding of Schiller's ethical/aesthetic views in Kant's Critique of Judgment and gives us not only the most complete account of "imaginative freedom" referenced in the title of the book, but also an analysis of different concepts of freedom found in Schiller. Dahlstrom's essay, which starts the second part of the book, could as well have been closing the first, since, in addition to making a connection to twentieth-century phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, it provides a close reading of [End Page 178] Schiller's most important philosophical work after the Aesthetic Letters, his On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry—a work that Beiser's Schiller the Philosopher had left out. Dahlstrom shows it to render a view of poetry as one way to reflect on humanity's place in the world after the loss of a kind of naturalness that Schiller sees realized in ancient Greek culture—which he idealized, like many of his contemporaries. For him, it is the task of culture, of which poetry is a part, "to lead us back, 'along the path of reason and freedom,' to nature" (107). Jeffrey Powell interprets Schiller's political aesthetics as the "disruption" (170) of aestheticized politics as it was critiqued by Walter Benjamin, based as it is on Schiller's concept of perfect freedom. María Luciana Cadahia uses Schiller's concept of positivity in his Aesthetic Letters as a corrective to contemporary readings of Michel Foucault's notion of dispositif. This is maybe the most important insight brought forward by most of the contributions: the idea of aesthetic freedom as an all-encompassing force, not one limited to the traditional realm of art but meant to mediate the dualisms of the age, and foremost that of the political and the moral. In the words of Jacques Rancière, "the aesthetic is equally ethical, political, or religious . . . [carrying] the promise of a newly non-separated world, one where art will no longer exist as a separate sphere, but where the practices of artists will be identical...

Sovereignty and Democracy in Global Times: acutality of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Political Philosophy and the limits of the social contract

SOBERANIA E DEMOCRACIA EM TEMPOS MUNDIALIZADOS: ATUALIDADE DA FILOSOFIA POLÍTICA DE JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU E OS LIMITES DO CONTRATO SOCIAL
 
 Resumo: este artigo visa a problematizar os (des)caminhos dos conceitos políticos e das práticas sociais e jurídicas em torno da soberania política do Estado Nacional e da democracia nos tempos de mundialização do Capital. Portanto, revisita e percorre uma breve arqueologia conceitual da Soberania, desde Isidoro de Sevilha até a clássica definição de Jean Bodin nos Seis Livros sobre a República (1576). O propósito é problematizar a filosofia política de Rousseau para, então, perceber e discutir seus limites suas virtualidades, bem como a atualidade de sua noção de Contrato Social e o papel da Filosofia Política na Era do Capital Global. 
 
 Palavras-chave: Rousseau. Soberania. Mundialização do Capital. 
 
 Abstract: this paper casts doubt on the ways and shunts of political concepts and social and legal practices concerning political sovereignty of the Nation State and democracy at the time of Capital’s globalization. It revisits a brief conceptual archeology of Sovereignty, since Isidore of Seville to the classical definition by Jean Bodin in The Six Books on the Republic (1576). The purpose is casting doubt on the political philosophy of Rousseau, in order to discuss its limits and virtualities, and the topicality of his notion of social contract and the role of Political Philosophy at the Age of Global Capital.
 Keywords: Rousseau. Sovereignty. Globalization of Capital.

The Implications of Taste Education in Moral Politics : Focusing on J-J Rousseau's Political Philosophy

The Implications of Taste Education in Moral Politics : Focusing on J-J Rousseau's Political Philosophy

A New Reading of Werther as Goethe's Critique of Rousseau

This article argues for a new ironic reading of Werther– a reading that highlights Goethe's early critique of Rousseau's political philosophy. The article first compares key passages in Werther to Rousseau's Discours sur l'Origine et les Fondements de l'Inégalitéparmi les hommes and Essai sur l'origine des langues to show how Goethe uses Rousseau's texts to create a critical distance between the reader and the sentimental narrative. The article then analyzes Goethe's farcical play, Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit. While the play is generally read as a satiric criticism of the public's reaction to Werther, this article contends that the play is also a commentary on Rousseau's philosophy and Werther itself.

Gersonides on Providence: A Jewish Chapter in the History of the General Will

The notion of the "general will" has proven to be one of the more influential and at the same time enduringly perplexing concepts in the history of ideas. Its most famous appearance is of course, in Rousseau's political philosophy as the expression, ideally embodied in the sovereign's commands, of what is in the common or public interest. The general will (la volonté générale) is, Rousseau says, the will of "the body of the people," that is, "the will that one has a citizen" for the common good. It thus stands in contrast to the "particular will" (la volonté particulière), the expression of one's individual and particularistic preference.1 In this political context, what gives the general will its generality is the universality of interest it represents. Its scope extends to all citizens and it specifies what is in the best interest of the members of the body politic as a whole. Although the general will may or may not coincide with each and every individual's private interest, all citizens are, as a matter of fact, properly served by its fulfillment.

Rousseauian Constructivism

Rousseauian Constructivism JON MANDLE ROUSSEAU'S POLITICALPHILOSOPHYfocusses on the idea of the general will. Unfortunately, it often seems as though this central idea raises more questions than it answers. This paper will develop an interpretation of Rousseau's political philosophy that starts from an understanding of the general will. I do not claim that this reading solves all of the paradoxical and difficult aspects of Rousseau's moral and political thought. For example, I do not discuss his account of freedom or his theory of moral education. However, I believe that it is necessary to understand Rousseau's notion of the general will properly before addressing these other topics. As Judith Shklar writes: "The general will is Rousseau's most successful metaphor. It conveys everything he most wanted to say."' Patrick Riley has demonstrated that the notion of a general will has its origins in theological disputes. But, as Riley also notes, there are a number of possible approaches to Rousseau, "each one laden with real fruit. One can (and somewhere should) approach Rousseau as the high point of the social contract tradition. ''~ In this paper, I present an account of the general will which attempts to identify more clearly Rousseau's position in this social contract tradition , especially through a contrast with Hobbes. As I demonstrate in the concluding section, a proper understanding of the general will reveals important connections to recent constructivist theories of ethics and justice. At one level, Rousseau's understanding of the "fundamental problem" of political philosophy is clear enough. He states it explicitly: "Find a form of association that defends and protects the person and goods of each associate with all the common force, and by means of which each one, uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before." This is the fundamental problem which is solved by the social contract (SC, 53 [360]).3 1Men and Citizens (New York: Cambridge, 1969), 184. Patrick Riley, The General Will before Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 256. All quotations from Rousseau appear in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres Complktes, vol. III (Paris: l~dition de la PMiade, 1964). I rely on the followingtranslations, and abbreviations: SC: On [545] 546 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:4 OCTOBER a99 7 The social contract is what can make a political order "legitimate and reliable" (SC, 46 [351 ]). Arid Rousseau is no less explicit about the content of the social contract which solves this problem. This contract "can be reduced to the following terms": "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in a body we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole" (SC, 53 [361]).4 So, the social contract is an agreement to be guided by the general will, and such an agreement renders political rule "legitimate and reliable." In addition, Rousseau tells us: "Only the general will obligates private individuals" (SC, 69 [383], my emphasis). The problem, then, is why does Rousseau believe that such a social contract, one which establishes the sovereignty of the general will, and only such a contract, provides the basis for legitimate political rule? 1. SOVEREIGNTY We will begin by considering the notion of sovereignty. For Rousseau, as for Hobbes, the sovereign is the ground for all genuine political obligations. It will be useful to contrast their views concerning the establishment of a sovereign. For Hobbes, a commonwealth is formed when individuals "conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices into one Will" (L, 227).5 One way in which this can be done is through mutual covenants, in which the individuals say to one another, "I Authorise and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner" (L, 227). Indeed, Hobbes defines a commonwealth as: One Person, of whose Acts a great Multitude, by mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one...

Gendered community: Rousseau, sex, and politics

Rousseau's writings reflect paradoxes and apparent inconsistencies with his principled commitments to freedom and equality. In this engrossing work, Penny Weiss wrestles with issues of gender in the works of Rousseau. Weiss attempts to resolve apparent inconsistencies by placing them within the context of Rousseau's political philosophy, while avoiding the impulse to attribute his remarks on the sexes to the sexist times in which he wrote, or to his personal idiosyncracies. A significant contribution to feminist theory, this book addresses the debates concerning Rousseau's understandings of gender, justice, freedom, community, and equality. She also examines how Rousseau's political strategies give rise to a range of important contemporary questions regarding families, citizens, and communities. This new, more complete picture of Rousseau's work will challenge scholars and students of philosophy, politics, and women's studies to look at, and understand, Rousseau in a whole new way. Penny A. Weiss addresses the apparent male/female contradictions that run through the work of the eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She argues that Rousseau's defense of sexual differentiation is based on the contribution he perceives it can make to the establishment of community, not on an appeal to some version of natural sex differences. Weiss convincingly demonstrates that Rousseau's political strategy is ultimately unworkable, undermining the very community it was meant to establish.

Freedom in Rousseau's political philosophy

Cullen demonstrates that the concept of freedom is fundamental to Rousseau's work, showing that the pervasive tension in Rousseau's thought between freedom and order, legitimacy and reliability, can be explained as an effort to attune the political to the natural condition and to reestablish a condi

Natural Inequality and Rousseau's Political Philosophy in His Discourse on Inequality

Natural Inequality and Rousseau's Political Philosophy in His Discourse on Inequality

Natural Inequality and Rousseau's Political Philosophy in His Discourse On Inequality

Natural Inequality and Rousseau's Political Philosophy in His Discourse On Inequality

Rousseau's Exemplary Life: "The Confessions" as Political Philosophy (review)

1 76Philosophy and Literature tribution to contemporary criticism. In these adventurously conceived texts, Barthes engages in a "rewriting of the concepts surrounding the notion of the human subject and, in particular, a rewriting of the concept of the self" (p. 134). Wiseman supports her case for the later Barthes effectively, but an unfortunate consequence of her procedure is that she pays litde or no attention to Critical Essays (1964), Criticism and Truth (1966), and SIZ (1970), all of which have proven very influential for literary critics and theorists. In addition, and more importandy, Wiseman fails to locate Barthes in any kind of comparative context. She basically considers him in isolation, supplying only an occasional reference to Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan and not mentioning Stanley Fish, H. R. Jauss, and others who have examined matters that Barthes treated. In her preface, Wiseman declares that she decided to forego situating Barthes within "the contemporary French play of ideas" (p. xiii), but saying this does notjustify the absence of comparison and contrast in her book. Because Wiseman confines herself to Barthes's texts alone, she does not enable her readers to see his contribution clearly—where he overlaps with Derrida, where he diverges from Lacan, where he goes beyond or falls short of Fish and Jauss. If Wiseman had introduced other theorists and critics into her analysis, she might have been guided toward a more measured, if still admiring, relation to Barthes. Nowhere does she speak skeptically about him: it is as though he never uttered a word that she has felt inclined to challenge. Her desire to present her "responses to Barthes's own mode of thinking" (p. xiii) has led her to produce a sensitive, intimate book, but, in my view, it also means that she allows Barthes to define the terms for his own appraisal. Wiseman studies him appreciatively , but not critically, and in this sense her response is less rounded and flexible than it should be. Wellesley CollegeWilliam E. Cain Rousseau's Exemplary Life: "The Confessions" as Political PhUosophy, by Christopher Kelly; xiv & 262 pp. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, $29.95. The tide of Kelly's book is somewhat misleading; this reviewer would have been better prepared had it read something like the following: TL· Role of tL· Imagination in tL· Development of Rousseau's Political Philosophy as Seen Through "TL· Confessions." Viewed in this light, Kelly's investigation of Rousseau's thought, and most particularly of the relation of TL· Confessions to his more Reviews177 systematic works, is a useful new attempt to bring the two sides of Rousseau's work together in a meaningful whole. Kelly starts his investigation with two chapters entided "Political Philosophy and the Genre of Lives" and "The Need for a New Exemplary Life." He is quite thorough in his investigation of the status of autobiography, comparing Rousseau to Saint Augustine and quoting from most ofthe contemporary critics of autobiography. He disagrees with their conclusion that autobiography is essentially a distortion of both reality and philosophy and therefore useless in the interpretation of any author's system of ideas. Following Starobinski, Kelly points to three main ways in which Rousseau sees autobiography as a useful, indeed necessary enterprise: it permits him to identify society's evils through its effect on himself; it lets him define the principles that allow this identification; and, according to Kelly, it allows him to give an account of someone who can actually gain access to these principles. Using Cato, Socrates, and Jesus as examples of exemplary lives, Kelly shows why none of these was satisfactory to Rousseau, thus necessitating a new type of exemplary life. Chapters three through six give the reader an analysis of all twelve books of The Confessions, with most attention devoted to the first book, in a chapter entided "The Awakening of the Imagination and the Departure from Nature." Using The Second Discourse and Emile as points of comparison, Kelly delineates clearly how Rousseau's positive education and love of reading lead him away from the natural life through his imagination which opens up a series of feelings unnatural to his age, namely sexuality, anger, and vanity. There is a rather weak section...

Understanding the General Will

EW CONCEPTS in history of political thought have proved so troublesome as Rousseau's notion of general will. Rousseau must bear much of blame for this, of course, for discussion of general in his Social Contract is uncharacteristically terse and abstract. Troublesome as it has been, though, there is reason to believe that we are now approaching an adequate understanding of general will. I say this because there seems to be growing agreement among Rousseau's commentators that general not only can be understood, but that it can best be understood in rationalistic terms.' Indeed, where explications once were couched in terms of real and higher wills, one is now more likely to find general explained in terms of prisoners' dilemma and Paretooptimality.2 While I do not accept all of these rationalistic readings of general will, I do share general conviction that we can make sense of Rousseau's concept, and his argument, without resorting to metaphysics or psychology. What I shall offer here, accordingly, is in some respects only a variation on a theme now well known to students of Rousseau's political philosophy. It is an important variation nonetheless, for it enables us to reconcile passages in Social Contract which otherwise appear to be contradictory. That, at least, is what I shall argue in this essay. I proceed in following manner. First I set out a general account of what Rousseau means by the general will an account which resembles in its main lines, if not all its details, Brian Barry's analysis of general will.3 This account is defended in second part of essay, where I show how it helps us to understand two of more controversial aspects of Rousseau's argument in Social Contract. In part three I extend this account (and provide variation mentioned in last paragraph) by drawing a distinction, implicit and almost unmarked in Rousseau's writings, between general and a general will. With aid of this distinction, I argue, we can make sense of Rousseau's baffling and apparently contradictory remarks about voting. Once this is demonstrated, I conclude by raising some questions about utility of concept of general will.

DUTY AND IGNORANCE

The Southern Journal of PhilosophyVolume 18, Issue 3 p. 301-312 DUTY AND IGNORANCE Ramon M. Lemos, Ramon M. Lemos University of Miami Ramon M. Lemos is professor of philosophy and chairman of the department at the University of Miami. He is the author of several articles and of three books: Experience, Mind and Value (1969), Rousseau's Political Philosophy (1977), and Hobbes and Locke: Power and Content (1978).Search for more papers by this author Ramon M. Lemos, Ramon M. Lemos University of Miami Ramon M. Lemos is professor of philosophy and chairman of the department at the University of Miami. He is the author of several articles and of three books: Experience, Mind and Value (1969), Rousseau's Political Philosophy (1977), and Hobbes and Locke: Power and Content (1978).Search for more papers by this author First published: Fall 1980 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-6962.1980.tb01387.xCitations: 3 Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume18, Issue3Fall 1980Pages 301-312 RelatedInformation

Rousseau's Political Philosophy: An Exposition and Interpretation (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 353 reading; indeed, much of the book seems to merit the title "Berkeley made difficult." Readers may also wonder whether some of Pitcher's fine distinctions and dissections are worth the fuss and the typographical disruption (see pp. 10-11, 26, 95-96). But Pitcher's chief weakness is his speculative and cavalier way of doing history of philosophy. His self-evident axiom is that "Locke is the Philosopher for Berkeley . . . [indeed] the Enemy [sic]" (p. 90). Time and again we learn that Berkeley is "attacking" Locke on matter. For example: "Berkeley seeks to rectify the faults he finds in Locke's system..." (p. 92), "Berkeley bluntly contends, against Locke, that our ideas of sense cannot possibly resemble Lockean material objects..." (p. 115), "The second of Berkeley 's two parting shots against Locke is aimed..." (p. 122). But Berkeley mentions Locke neither directly nor indirectly in his published statements on matter and sense perception. (Locke's views on language are, of course, openly attacked in the introduction to the Principles.) When Berkeley names his materialistic opponents, as he does in the Principles, section 93, and in the second of the Three dialogues, it is Hobbes, Spinoza, and Vanini (and more generally the Hobbists and Epicureans) that he mentions. Hence Pitcher's expressions like "the hated Lockean dualism" (p. 169) are little better than historical romance. Most of his Locke-Berkeley discussions are only barely based on fact, such as when he sees Berkeley objecting to Locke's philosophy on account of its (1) atheism and irreligion, (2) opposition to common sense, and (3) skepticism (pp. 91-92, 134, and 142). But what of (1) Hobbes, Spinoza, (2) Malebranche, and (3) Bayle? There is surely "an air of unreality"--to use Pitcher's own phrase-- when Locke is commissioned to be Berkeley's irreligious and uncommonsensicaltarget in preference to Hobbes or Spinoza. Unfortunately , Pitcher's historical prize-ring is large enough for only two contestants. I do not wish to claim, however, that Pitcher is the worst sinner in this respect, or that his discussions in Chapters 6 through 11 are fundamentally vitiated by the fictitious links he forges between Locke and Berkeley. But by artificially restricting Berkeley's targets, he does oversimplify and distort Berkeley 's complex critique of materialism, which is not, as the title of Chapter 7 indicates, an "attack against Lockean matter." Rather, it is a many-sided attack against conceptions of matter drawn from the ancient materialists, the Schoolmen, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Malebranche, and, probably, also from Locke. Pitcher's highhanded history of philosophy is in marked contrast, happily, to his careful and precise analysis of Berkeley's arguments in the classic works published between 1709 and 1713. Here he is illuminating;although on some topics--numerical identity (pp. 144-49) being one I think he overstates and hence misrepresents Berkeley's position. Pitcher's concentration on the earlier works is understandable, but it sometimes leads to the omission of relevant evidence. Thus in his interesting discussion of Berkeley's concept of mind, (pp. 212-22), he should certainly have examined Berkeley's assertion in De motu, section 21, that we know our soul "by a certain internal consciousness" (also see sec. 29). Pitcher's account of mind and time is also, I think, weakened by his failure to see the theological aims of Berkeley, whose subjective theory of time is hardly a "desperate effort" against "the spectre of scepticism" (p. 223). It is, in fact, at the heart of his novel proof for the immortality of the soul, which is for him an item of rational and not (p. 244) pragmatic theology. DAVIDBERMAN Trinity College, Dublin Ramon M. Lemos. Rousseau's Political Philosophy: An Exposition and Interpretation. Athens, Ga.: The University of Georgia Press, 1977. Pp. x + 262. $14.50. This is a rather thorough study of Rousseau's political philosophy. Concentrating upon the Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of lnequahty Among Men, the Dtscourse on Political Economy, and The Social Contract, Lemos covers in detail the major aspects of Rousseau's vision 354 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of political and moral life and presents us with a viable interpretation of his view...

Rousseau's Political Philosophy: An Interpretation from Within (review)

Rousseau's Political Philosophy: An Interpretation from Within (review)

Rousseau's Political Philosophy, an Interpretation from within

Rousseau's Political Philosophy, an Interpretation from within

Rousseau's Political Philosophy: An Interpretation from Within

Rousseau's Political Philosophy: An Interpretation from Within