Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was born of parents of modest means in 1712 in Geneva, a city that he quit as an adolescent but to which he would occasionally return, both physically and spiritually. He led a rather picaresque early life, working variously as a servant, private tutor, music copyist, and ambassador's secretary, eventually making his way to Paris, where he consorted with the philosophes. In 1749, while walking to Vincennes, he had an “illumination” that was to result in the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences and subsequent notoriety. A steady stream of writings extended his fame across Europe, although the controversial nature of these writings meant that he was often on the move, a tendency exacerbated by increasing signs of paranoia as he advanced in age. He died in 1778 in his final refuge in Ermenonville. At the height of the French Revolution, his remains were transferred to the Panthéon, only to be removed and scattered with the Bourbon Restoration.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is an enigma. He has been variously described as a figure of the Enlightenment and as its critic, as an individualist and a collectivist, a democrat and a totalitarian, the founding figure of the modern cult of the inner life, and the posthumous “author” of the French Revolution. Such very different judgments stem in part from the diversity of his writings, which can be grouped into the following categories: historical anthropology (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Essay on the Origin of Languages), political theory (The Social Contract, Discourse on Political Economy) and political practice (The Government of Poland, Constitutional Project for Corsica), education (Emile), the arts (Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, Letter to M. Alembert on the Theatre), fiction (Julie or La Nouvelle Hélöise), autobiography, introspection, and self-justification (The Confessions, Reveries of the Solitary Walker, Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques), not to mention his writings on botany and music (or his musical and operatic compositions). But such very different judgments also stem from the fact that the same works have been subjected to the most contradictory interpretations. Rousseau's writings are infinitely rich and complex, subject to considerable internal tensions.

If one adopts the perspective of a specifically social theory, one might begin by noting that the widespread use of the term social in the nineteenth century owed much to the fame of The Social Contract. This work, however, is decidedly more a work of political than social theory. The society of the social contract is an exclusively political society: For it is formed by a political act, held together by a political will, and ordered relative to political ends. Moreover, the members of this society must present themselves exclusively as citizens, not as social actors. And yet Rousseau radicalizes the premises of contract theory to the point where the political constitution of society begins to implode. It is at this point of implosion that Rousseau can be read, retrospectively, as a social theorist.

The social contract forms, and is formed by, the general will, which in turn establishes the general laws that constitute the collective order and constitute it as a just order. This contract is established both between individuals (as a decision to live together under the same laws) and within each individual (as a decision to live according to the law). With [Page 657]the contract, all citizens agree to alienate their entire “natural” liberty to the collective body, and they acquire in return, through their participation in that body, a properly social or, better, political liberty. This latter liberty implies not just a principle of collective self-determination as given by the general will, but a principle of individual self-determination: For once one has left the presocial state and become self-conscious, one will want to be free to determine one's own law (as well as the general law). The two laws, individual and collective, coincide in principle. Otherwise individuals would not agree to the terms of the contract, even as there could be no individual law without the “social” state formed by the contract. The fact that the general will is to be truly general, deriving from and applying to everyone equally, determines its three principal characteristics: its inalienability, indivisibility, and infallibility. It is inalienable in that it cannot be transferred to a less general will, as in the case of its representation. It is indivisible, insofar as it cannot be general if divided against itself. And it is infallible in that its generality guarantees its rightness (the empirical will of all, should it fail to present the general interest, would not be truly general if everyone knew what that interest was). These claims must be understood as having an axiomatic nature, as belonging to the social contract's definitional logic. As the contract and the will formed by the contract are, by reason of their generality, entirely abstract, it is not immediately clear what their relation is to empirical reality and its particulars.

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