Lecture:
Rousseau/Republicanism:
- Different type of social contract
- Rousseau influenced by Republicanism
- Hobbes, Kant and Rawls- can all be seen as liberalism
- Think about similarities and differences between them
o Views in human nature
o Social contract
o How they perceive the political community
- Rousseau was influenced by Hobbes, who influenced Kant [course is going backwards]
Overview:
- Rousseau’s Social Contract
o Background and key concepts
o Notion of the ‘general will’
Kant borrowing it from Rousseau
o Dilemma in Rousseau’s thought
Unlike the more systematic philosophers, was full of contradictions and ambiguities
For some- its more interesting
- Rousseau’s anthropology/sociology
o How society changes him
o Compare with Hobbes here
- Critique of inequality
o Thought it was where we societies went wrong- not just in the natural condition
o Now others coming back to his notion
- Similarities and differences with Hobbes (and Kant and Rawls)
- Neo-Roman Republicanism’ (Pettit, further)
o Updating of republicanism for contemporary pluralistic societies
- [see Pettit further reading]
Rousseau [1712-1778]:
- Born in Geneva in 1712
o Switzerland has a tradition of direct democracy
o They have referendums often
- Composer, musicologist, playwright, drama critic, novelist, botanist, pedagogue, political philosopher, psychologist
- Wrote Discourse on the Origins of Inequality among Men, the so-called Second Discourse, in 1754 (which represents the
‘true Rousseau’ for the French revolutionaries)
- Rousseau publishes The Social Contract in 1762, condemned and burned in Paris and Geneva
o Sovereignty is never alienated- it remains with the people.
o Unlike Hobbes, doesn’t even try to semi justify sovereignty
- Takes refuge, writes incognito and ends with confessional works, The Reveries of a Solitary Walker
- Strong influence on French Revolution and Jacobins
o At the height of the French Revolution his ashes are transferred in torchlight procession to the Pantheon
Picked up on his work- particularly discourse on … inequality
- Strong influence on republicanism more generally
Republicanism:
- People not being segregated individuals, but potentially united in this common good
- Human beings can be united by a common interest, within a particular historical community, creating a republic
o Has to be in some political context
o Cannot be some sort of abstract justification -like the liberals
Liberalism - can be seen as isolated form society, regarded as a discrete actor
o The republic, state - the importance of the Unit.
o Republicanism - stemming form the thing we have in common.
- ‘Rousseau: ‘Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains’
o Double sense- man is naturally free [not in the Hobbesian sense as in free to accumulate everything for himself, but
having a natural goodness in him. It is society that perverts this natural goodness in man. The wrong kind of society
that keeps us in chains.]
His social contract is designed to release us from those chains.
Rousseau: a complex figure…
- Need to think in 3 stages [unlike Hobbes which provides us w/ 2 alternatives: state of nature, state.]
- Here, there is no binary choice- we have 3 options;
o There is nature
Rousseau/Republicanism:
- Different type of social contract
- Rousseau influenced by Republicanism
- Hobbes, Kant and Rawls- can all be seen as liberalism
- Think about similarities and differences between them
o Views in human nature
o Social contract
o How they perceive the political community
- Rousseau was influenced by Hobbes, who influenced Kant [course is going backwards]
Overview:
- Rousseau’s Social Contract
o Background and key concepts
o Notion of the ‘general will’
Kant borrowing it from Rousseau
o Dilemma in Rousseau’s thought
Unlike the more systematic philosophers, was full of contradictions and ambiguities
For some- its more interesting
- Rousseau’s anthropology/sociology
o How society changes him
o Compare with Hobbes here
- Critique of inequality
o Thought it was where we societies went wrong- not just in the natural condition
o Now others coming back to his notion
- Similarities and differences with Hobbes (and Kant and Rawls)
- Neo-Roman Republicanism’ (Pettit, further)
o Updating of republicanism for contemporary pluralistic societies
- [see Pettit further reading]
Rousseau [1712-1778]:
- Born in Geneva in 1712
o Switzerland has a tradition of direct democracy
o They have referendums often
- Composer, musicologist, playwright, drama critic, novelist, botanist, pedagogue, political philosopher, psychologist
- Wrote Discourse on the Origins of Inequality among Men, the so-called Second Discourse, in 1754 (which represents the
‘true Rousseau’ for the French revolutionaries)
- Rousseau publishes The Social Contract in 1762, condemned and burned in Paris and Geneva
o Sovereignty is never alienated- it remains with the people.
o Unlike Hobbes, doesn’t even try to semi justify sovereignty
- Takes refuge, writes incognito and ends with confessional works, The Reveries of a Solitary Walker
- Strong influence on French Revolution and Jacobins
o At the height of the French Revolution his ashes are transferred in torchlight procession to the Pantheon
Picked up on his work- particularly discourse on … inequality
- Strong influence on republicanism more generally
Republicanism:
- People not being segregated individuals, but potentially united in this common good
- Human beings can be united by a common interest, within a particular historical community, creating a republic
o Has to be in some political context
o Cannot be some sort of abstract justification -like the liberals
Liberalism - can be seen as isolated form society, regarded as a discrete actor
o The republic, state - the importance of the Unit.
o Republicanism - stemming form the thing we have in common.
- ‘Rousseau: ‘Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains’
o Double sense- man is naturally free [not in the Hobbesian sense as in free to accumulate everything for himself, but
having a natural goodness in him. It is society that perverts this natural goodness in man. The wrong kind of society
that keeps us in chains.]
His social contract is designed to release us from those chains.
Rousseau: a complex figure…
- Need to think in 3 stages [unlike Hobbes which provides us w/ 2 alternatives: state of nature, state.]
- Here, there is no binary choice- we have 3 options;
o There is nature
