Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (original) (raw)
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Rousseau's Critique of the Enlightenment: The Science of Man
In this paper, I show that the Enlightenment can be understood as the attempt to harness the predictive power of Newtonian science within the social sphere, and thereby establish a new social science. I then argue that Rousseau criticizes this attempt in his Discours sur les sciences et les arts on two grounds: on the one hand, he holds that the popularization of science, which results in the creation of social science, is fatal to the virtues of a nation; on the other, he maintains that such social science is not science at all, but a vulgarized version of it, what we call scientism. This presentation is composed of three parts. In the first, I explain the philosophical consequences of what Hume calls the Newtonian Revolution. My focus here is to show that Newton’s physics does not refute, for instance, metaphysical or teleological thinking. Rather, Newton simply articulates a method that, on the one hand, can predict the course of nature, and on other hand, neither requires metaphysics nor teleology to achieve this. This is important, for it shows that the Enlightenment that follows is not the consequence of some definitive refutation of, say, first principle philosophy. No, the Enlightenment is mainly inspired by the predictive power of Newtonian physics. Its advocates, notably Voltaire, thus go in search of an epistemology that can be graphed or mapped onto Newton’s physics. In the second part, I explain how this search results in a new, universal conception of man, and a social science that attempts to predict the course of human nature in terms of man’s passions and commerce. Rousseau’s critique, which engages the philosophers of the Enlightenment on precisely these grounds, is then developed in the last part.
Rousseau on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind
The argument of the first Discours is governed by the antithesis between the ‘original’ nature of man on the one hand and the corruption of modern civilisation on the other; this antithesis is developed in terms of a contrast between the freedom implied by true being and the enslavement and estrangement which is the human condition in the modern world. Rousseau is concerned not so much with historical details as with the moral theme which allows him to separate the original elements of man’s being from the artificial elements added by the process of civilisation. By ‘original’ Rousseau means ‘what belongs incontestably to man’. Rousseau is therefore concerned to distinguish the essential and authentic as given by true original being from the accidental and artificial elements added by civilisation.
The Modern Value of the State of Nature in Rousseau (FLSF, 31, 2021)
Rousseau's early work on political philosophy, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, seeks to conceptualise the transformation of the savage human of the state of nature into the rational human of the state of civilisation. The overall narrative seems to construct a pessimistic narrative of history, demonstrating the inevitable downfall of humanity from a blissful starting point to a bloodstained, conflict-ridden terminus. In this article, I aim to re-evaluate this negative value of the state of nature in Rousseau. To this end, I emphasise the shift in the role of society as regards freedom in his later political work, On the Social Contract, in which not the egoist savage human but the sociable modern human being is thought to be the ultimate goal. I suggest that, instead of considering the hypothetical period of the state of nature as a bygone era of humanity, it could be re-evaluated as providing us with a goal for the human being of the state of civilisation. The simplicity and compassion of the savage human, who is immune from the destructive sentiment of amour propre, might be seen as equipping the modern human of excessive egoism with a horizon to determine its line of development.
An essay on the principles of Rousseau's anthropology
Philosophy & Social Criticism, 2000
Against the impression that Rousseau is an eclectic thinker, what follows is an attempt to reconstruct the systematic core of his anthropology. Firstly, I will discuss the methodological starting point. Secondly, I will develop the structural framework required to make the concept "nature" operative as an ideal within social contexts. Finally, I will interpret Rousseau's genetic account in terms of this framework. A twofold notion of logic is introduced to integrate the demands of history and structure, which overlap with those of freedom and necessity in Rousseau's thought. This organizes my argument in a mirrorlike way. I call this undertaking an "essay," for it is the endeavor to think what Rousseau must have thought in order to write what he wrote. Psychological starting point 2 (I) To hide behind a mask is to live in chains. (II) To live in chains is to betray one's innermost essence. (III) Only he who already has betrayed himself is capable of betraying others. (IV) Mutual betrayal and deception represent the condition of modern men.
The problem of human needs provides an important access to Kant’s engagement with Rousseau’s sharp distinction between nature and civilization. This ancient distinction in its specifically Rousseauvian mould became a recurring theme in Kant’s thought, shaping his concepts of history, anthropology, and morality. The chapter argues that this distinction was mirrored by a distinction between natural, mainly physical needs on the one hand and hybrid artificial needs on the other, which, eighteenth-century thinkers claimed, resulted from the human capacity for perfection, and especially imagination. These boundless, secondary needs were repeatedly viewed as the driving engine of civilisation. According to Rousseau, they could also spell political and moral disaster by increasing dependencies, social inequality, and by the weakening our moral impulses. The chapter argues that Kant appropriated some of Rousseau’s key claims for his crucial intervention in the eighteenth-century debates about human perfection and teleology. Rousseau’s analysis of secondary human needs, especially the arts and sciences, became a building block in Kant’s rejection of eudaemonist moral philosophy and his case for moral action from reason only. For Kant, to overcome the ills of unsociability in economic, moral, and political relations mankind had to turn the arts and sciences into instruments of moral education and of the regulation of human needs.
Early one afternoon, in the autumn of 1749, Jean-Jacques Rousseau set out on the six-mile walk from Paris to Vincennes to visit his friend Denis Diderot, who had been imprisoned there on suspicion of having written several controversial, anonymous works. 1 In most respects, this trip was no different from those made by Rousseau to Vincennes almost daily during the previous two months. He was eager to see his friend, and so he wanted to travel in haste; but his poverty forced him to travel by foot rather than by carriage. Since the summer of 1749 had been unusually hot, and the road to Vincennes was largely without shade, Rousseau was in the habit of reading a book while he walked, to moderate his pace and keep himself from exhaustion. What was different about this particular trip was the book he brought with him: the October 1749 issue of the Mercury of France, an influential literary periodical. As he walked and read, Rousseau noticed an advertisement for a competition established by the Academy of Dijon. A prize was to be given to the discourse that best answered this question: "Has the restoration of the sciences and the arts contributed to the purification of morals?" [CW II, 1; cf. 4 and V, 294]. 2 At that moment, Rousseau writes, "I saw another universe, and I became another man" [CW V, 294]. He experienced a sudden illumination that revealed to him crowds of "great truths," and produced in him "a dizziness similar to drunkenness" [CW V, 575]. 3 The first result of this illumination was a speech condemning the sciences and the arts, a speech placed in the mouth of a patriotic Roman citizen, and written in a quarter of an hour as Rousseau lay stunned by the roadside. This speech became the heart of Rousseau's submission to the Academy's prize competition, which in turn became his first major philosophic work, the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts. In time, this violent reaction gave way to a state of "fermentation" that lasted for years [CW V, 298]. 4 Driven by this fermentation, Rousseau scattered the few "great truths" he was able to retain from his illumination among what he would later call his "three principal writings:" the aforementioned First Discourse, the Discourse on Inequality, or Second Discourse, and the novel on education, Emile [CW V, 575]. Chief among these "great truths" was one Rousseau would later call his "great principle:" that "nature made man happy and good, but... society depraves him and makes him miserable" [CW I, 213; cf. V, 575]. 5 It would be four years before another prize question caught Rousseau's eye. In the interim, he became infamous [CW V, xviii]. 6 His First Discourse won the prize from the Academy of Dijon [CW V, 642 note 28], and was printed and distributed across Europe, where it met with almost universal condemnation. Its defense embroiled Rousseau in almost endless pamphleteering. 7 Then, in the autumn of 1753, the Academy of Dijon announced in the Mercury of France another prize question: "What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by natural law?" [CW V, 647 note 155]. Rousseau,
ROUSSEAU: AUTONOMY, AUTHENTICITY AND AUTHORITY
This book argues that what makes Rousseau’s philosophy so vibrant and meaningful is its grounding in the most profound questions of being. Although Rousseau valued rational understanding as much as any philosopher, he was aware that reason was thin and misleading if it was concerned solely with pure intellect detached from human being. Hence Rousseau’s view that true philosophy rests upon an inner determination which makes it clear that the philosopher loves the truth rather than merely wants to identify it. Philosophy needs to rest on something more profound than the abstracted intellect; this is the human ontology. For Rousseau, the philosophical enterprise is inextricably connected with the consideration of being as a whole. Limited to intellectual activity alone, philosophy is not a genuine search for truth and is certain to leave the most important questions unanswered to the extent that it fails to engage with humanity’s whole existence. Philosophers need to penetrate beyond the intellect to identify the principles which were ‘engraved in the human heart in indelible characters’ and thus find truth in the comprehension of the depths of being. This book shows that Rousseau's great achievement is to have embodied this true philosophy in a viable social and political order, uniting the inner landscape and the outer landscape. In coming to understand essential being, Rousseau makes it possible to comprehend the fundamental features of human society, thus enabling us to reach the level of universal principle. The moral "ought-to-be" of philosophy is thus grounded in something real, in human nature and its potentialities, rather than in something impossibly ideal, some abstract standard. Rousseau thus gives individuals a vision of the ideal human society that they would, by nature, create and flourish in in order to become truly human beings. With Rousseau, politics and ethics are united in a social order that enables the creative realisation of the human ontology. For this reason, this book argues that Rousseau remains a contemporary figure.
'Rightly Ordered According to Nature': Rousseau and the States of Nature
In this paper I want to make two claims, which as I hope to show, deepen an aspect of Rousseau’s account and suggest possibilities for further development. Rousseau is widely recognised as relying on a concept of ‘nature’ to justify his attacks on certain institutions and ethos’, and indeed the philosophers themselves are chastised for being out of touch with nature, and dragging others along with them. But Rousseau uses the word ‘nature’ equivocally, apparently in order to pick out a number of distinct concepts. As Neuhouser points out, he uses the term on the one hand to connote an original condition which he does not regard as anything to be aspired to . On the other, he points out that Rousseau speaks of bringing humanity into harmony with nature—that is, with humanity’s nature—through precisely non-natural interventions which bring about good laws and well-cultivated individuals. In effect, these non-natural interventions denaturalise humanity to bring it into line with its nature. I will argue that Rousseau relies on a concept of nature in yet a third sense, paradoxically to connote humanity in a state of disharmony with humanity’s nature, hence to pick out that state to which humanity can tend absent these ‘denaturalising’ interventions. So first I will reconstruct the state of nature in a way that yields three distinct conceptions of the idea. In this way I hope to give plausible account of the diagnostic structure of Rousseau’s philosophy, providing some justification and explanation of the standards which enable his evaluative stance. I will then unpack and briefly explore what it means to be ‘unnatural’ in the normatively pejorative sense, aiming to show that Rousseau’s thought centres around a powerful if somewhat shadowy critique of what I am going to call the self-undermining dynamics at play when happiness, freedom and good living are pursued in situations unnatural in this negative sense.