Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy

A New Introduction

verfasst von: Nelson Lund

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Recovering Political Philosophy

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Einloggen, um Zugang zu erhalten

Über dieses Buch

This book reads Jean-Jacques Rousseau with a view toward deepening our understanding of many political issues alive today, including the place of women in society, the viability of traditional family structures, the role of religion and religious freedom in nations that are becoming ever more secular, and the proper conduct of American constitutional government. Rousseau has been among the most influential modern philosophers, and among the most misunderstood. The first great philosophic critic of the Enlightenment, he sought to revive political philosophy as it was practiced by Plato, and to make it useful in the modern world. His understanding of politics rests on deep and often prescient reflections about the nature of the human soul and the relationship between our animal origins and the achievements of civilization. This book demonstrates that the implications Rousseau drew from those reflections continue to deserve serious attention.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction

Abstract

Rousseau has been one of the most influential modern philosophers, and among the most misunderstood. This book re-examines his political philosophy by reading his works as he read those of Plato. Plato provoked in Rousseau a series of deep and frequently prescient reflections on the nature of the human soul and the relationship between our animal origins and the achievements of civilization. The implications that he drew from those reflections can help us to deepen our own understanding of many political issues that remain alive today, including feminism and the family, the role of religion in a secular society, and the proper conduct of constitutional government. Like Plato, Rousseau illuminates the obstacles facing those who aspire to replace political philosophy with political science.

Nelson Lund

Chapter 2. Philosophic Anthropology in the Discourse on Inequality

Abstract

Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality describes the primitive condition that he thinks was most durable and most conducive to human happiness. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas studied an indigenous African population that is probably descended from people who never left the area in which modern humans evolved, and had until recently undergone less cultural evolution than any other living people. Thomas’ study of these people supports Rousseau’s conjectures about the nature of early social life and enriches his account with a detailed analysis of the social practices that have made this way of life especially durable. The new evidence she supplies is consistent with Rousseau’s claim that human happiness does not require political government or what we call civilized life.

Nelson Lund

Chapter 3. The Evolution of Humanity in Language: Discourse on Inequality and Essay on the Origin of Languages

Abstract

Rousseau offers a complex response to the Western philosophic tradition that finds the best and most natural way of life within civilization. Rousseau agrees with that tradition in regarding speech as the defining human characteristic, and in seeking to take nature as a guide for human life. He offers a novel theory of the origin and evolution of human languages, which enabled our ancestors to become human and then to develop the social and individual pathologies that plague us today. This chapter compares Rousseau’s conjectures with the findings in several fields of modern science that bear on human evolution. Those findings are consistent with all of the major themes in Rousseau’s account.

Nelson Lund

Chapter 4. Greatness of Soul and the Souls of Women: Rousseau’s Use of Plato’s Laws in the Letter to d’ Alembert

Abstract

Rousseau did not believe that we could or should return to the primitive condition that he thought most conducive to human happiness. This chapter examines the highly original way in which he used insights drawn from Plato’s Laws to defend institutions adopted in the Republic of Geneva against threats posed by Enlightenment philosophy. His Letter to d’Alembert analyzes the subversive effects on human happiness of decadent art and the accompanying distortions of relations between the sexes. Traditional family life, the indispensable and fragile basis for the kind of liberal society promoted by Enlightenment thinkers, is threatened by the cosmopolitan principles those thinkers advocate.

Nelson Lund

Chapter 5. Nature and Marriage: Emile or On Education

Abstract

Having previously addressed the nature of man by looking at his primitive origins, Rousseau’s most ambitious book reopens the question of human nature through a fictional education of an ordinary child in a modern society. Taking Locke and Plato as foils, Rousseau imagines that a wise teacher could follow nature by very artfully arranging for a boy’s moral or social passions to emerge in a different order than they do in actual societies. The greatest challenge, which requires the most art, is to guide the boy into marriage. Deeper and more disturbing than the Letter to d’Alembert, this fiction illuminates the complexity and fragility of the happiness that can be found in traditional family life.

Nelson Lund

Chapter 6. Political Legitimacy, Direct Democracy, and American Politics

Abstract

This chapter complements the treatment of natural science in the first two chapters. The American Constitution is the most successful application of the Enlightenment’s new political science, and Rousseau was deeply skeptical about its promises. Nevertheless, his Social Contract and Considerations on the Government of Poland offer considerable support for important features of America’s constitutional arrangements. At the same time, Rousseau’s analysis points to the merits of certain dissident or subdominant strains in American political thought. American students of politics should reconsider the widely held view that Rousseau is a useless or dangerous guide for us. The chapter uses an important decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to show how Rousseau’s analysis of political legitimacy can throw new light on contemporary political issues.

Nelson Lund

Chapter 7. Conclusion

Abstract

Rousseau was the earliest and most profound philosophic critic of Enlightenment philosophy. The poisonous political fruits of his supposed influence on later thinkers are effects of inner weaknesses in the Enlightenment project that he only diagnosed. Cautious in proposing political reforms, Rousseau was bold in promoting moral reform, especially in his defense of “the small fatherland that is the family.” Rousseau has much to teach those who are alarmed today about the advancing corruption of Western civilization. At the same time, his analysis of politics and the human soul can help to rejuvenate political philosophy as an entrance to philosophy as a way of life.

Nelson Lund

Backmatter

Titel: Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy
verfasst von: Nelson Lund
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-41390-7
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-41389-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41390-7