The problem of order is central to Rousseau’s political and social thought. Nature’s order has been ruptured by man’s unique ability to conceive of order and cannot be restored; only a properly conceived artificial order can be “natural” and remedy the defects introduced by the original violation. This article examines Rousseau’s analysis of disorder in society (inequality, injustice, a “state of war”) and in the self (three modes of alienation); the philosophical bases of his theory about an artificial order being “natural” and remedying the designated defects; and the rationale of the means of doing so. The discussion involves two paradigms (the body, Julie’s garden) and four paradoxes (completing alienation, remaking nature, “losing” the self to restore it, using inequality to establish equality). Rousseau’s vocabulary and rhetoric are shown to support this analysis. In his argument, liberty and submission, self-fulfillment and the authoritarian state, nature and culture cease being antitheses.
