Rousseau - equality and freedom in the community

Abstract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau ’s name is often associated with an irrationalist, pre- Romantic idealization of the wild, untouched human nature and the primitive existence governed by feelings; or he is associated with shocking honesty and with the birth of the modern autobiography. He is seen as the Romantic in the Enlightenment period. More than anything else, however, Rousseau was a deeply sensitive political philosopher who highlighted a particular kind of state, based on fundamental laws, as the presupposition for human freedom within the parameters of the dawning modern society in which he lived. In this article, I shall re-examine Rousseau ’s unique and complex concepts of political freedom and equality, just laws, popular sovereignty, the general will, and democracy, and I shall show how these can be understood in the light of core problems in his writings as a whole. Unlike the currents in scholarly tradition which have emphasized the unsurpassable contradictions and paradoxes in the totality of Rousseau ’s activity as author and philosopher, I shall emphasize (in the spirit of Ernst Cassirer) the connections. 1 I shall thus identify a leitmotif in the great variety of his writings so that the political texts can be read as one of many proposed solutions to what Rousseau saw as the fundamental problem: namely, man’s dependence within the social relationships on which modern societies are built. This article will thus contribute to the rehabilitation of Rousseau ’s political thinking that is under way today and that points out (inter alia) the relevance of this thinking to contemporary debates about radical democracy—seen as space where common laws and rights remain open to being contested by the members of society.