Rousseau's Counter-Enlightenment: A Republican Critique of the Philosophes

by Graeme Garrard

Overview

Sees Rousseau as the father of Counter-Enlightenment thought.

Arguing that the question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s relationship to the Enlightenment has been eclipsed and seriously distorted by his association with the French Revolution, Graeme Garrard presents the first book-length case that shows Rousseau as the pivotal figure in the emergence of Counter-Enlightenment thought. Viewed in the context in which he actually lived and wrote—from the middle of the eighteenth century to his death in 1778—it is apparent that Rousseau categorically rejected the Enlightenment “republic of letters” in favor of his own “republic of virtue.” The philosophes, placing faith in reason and natural human sociability and subjecting religion to systematic criticism and doubt, naively minimized the deep tensions and complexities of collective life and the power disintegrative forces posed to social order. Rousseau believed that the ever precarious social order could only be achieved artificially, by manufacturing “sentiments of sociability,” reshaping individuals to identify with common interests instead of their own selfish interests.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780791456033
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	01/09/2003
Series:	SUNY series in Social and Political Thought
Pages:	206
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Graeme Garrard is Lecturer in Political Philosophy and European Thought at Cardiff University.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. The Enlightenment Republic of Letters

The Party of Humanity
The Virtue of Selfish Sociability

2. Philosophe, Madman, Revolutionary, God: The Many Faces of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Introduction
Rousseau and the Philosophes
The Invention of the "Revolutionary" Rousseau
Conclusion

3. Unsociable Man: Rousseau’s Critique of Enlightenment

Social Thought
Introduction
From Contract to Community
Natural Order, Social Disorder
Conclusion

4. Rousseau's Counter-Enlightenment Republic of Virtue

Introduction
Extending amour-propre
Statecraft as Soulcraft
Rousseau’s "Manly" Republic
Conclusion

5. On the Utility of Religion

Introduction
The Religious Basis of Morality
The Union of Church and State

6. Dare to Be Ignorant!

Introduction
Messieurs de l’Encyclopédie
"A Sweet and Precious Ignorance"
The Light Within
Conclusion

7. The Worst of All Possible Worlds

The Cautious Optimism of the Philosophes
Rousseau’s Optimism about the Past
Rousseau’s Pessimism about the Future
Conclusion

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index