Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website: https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Rousseau's Confessions is generally regarded simply as his autobiography or, more precisely, as his apology—his defense of his character and conduct against the attacks of his enemies. Yet he himself claims that the work is philosophically significant; the Confessions is intended to be an account of man as he is according to nature. This essay will attempt to uncover the philosophical import of the Confessions especially as it bears upon the question of the individual and society. The Introduction will establish the philosophical context within which Rousseau places his enterprises and will point to the contemporary political significances of that enterprise. In the second section, Rousseau's understanding of himself as a “natural man” will be examined. The third section will show the radical character of the tension between the individual and society as this tension follows from Rousseau's account of the nature of man. Finally, the root of Rousseau's understanding of the political problem having been exposed, Rousseau's status as the champion of the individual's claims against society will be seen to be highly problematic. That is, Rousseau will show himself to be far more critical of contemporary political- and self-consciousness than is generally thought to be the case.
1 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Les Confessions in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Oeuvres complètes, eds. Gagnebin, Bernard and Raymond, Marcel, vol. 1: Les Confessions: Autres textes autobiographiques (Paris, 1959), 3, p. 128Google Scholar.
2 Ibid., 1, p. 39.
3 “Living in the opinions of others” is Rousseau's characterization of the being of civilized (sociable) man.
4 Rousseau, , Confessions, 1, p. 5Google Scholar.
5 Ibid., 2, p. 85; 3, pp. 120, 128.
6 Rousseau often draws attention to his poor memory. See, for example, Confessions, 7, p. 277; 8, p. 398. Concerning the question of Rousseau's frankness, see Starobinski, Jean, La transparence et l'obstacle (Paris, 1971), especially chap. 7Google Scholar. With reference to the related question of “distance,” see Derrida, Jacques, De la grammatologie (Paris, 1967), pt. 2, chap. 2Google Scholar, and de Man, Paul, Blindness and Insight (New York, 1971), chap. 7Google Scholar.
7 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Quatre lettres à M. le Président de Malesherbes, in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Oeuvres complètes, eds. Gagenebin, and Raymond, , vol. 1: Les Confessions: Autres textes autobiographiques (Paris, 1959), p. 1134Google Scholar.
8 Rousseau, , Confessions, 7, p. 278Google Scholar. Burgelin, Pierre in his La philosophie de l'existence de J.-J. Rousseau (Paris, 1952), p. 576Google Scholar, and Cassirer, Ernst in The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, trans, and ed. Gay, Peter (Bloomington, 1963), p. 50Google Scholar, understand Rousseau's return to the state of nature as a turning within.
9 Ibid., p. 279.
10 Ibid., 8, p. 374.
11 Ibid., 11, p. 547.
12 Ibid., p. 568.
13 Ibid., 6, p. 243.
14 Ibid., 2, p. 69.
15 Ibid., 8, p. 393.
16 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Oeuvres complèutes, eds. Gagnebin, and Raymond, , vol. 3: Du Contrat social; Écrits politiques (Paris, 1964), pt. 1, p. 143Google Scholar.
17 Rousseau, , Confessions, 6, pp. 228–44Google Scholar.
18 Rousseau, , Discours sur l'inégalité, pt. 1, p. 144Google Scholar.
19 Rousseau, , Confessions, 8, p. 363Google Scholar.
20 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Les Rêneries du promeneur solitaire, in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Oeuvres complètes, eds. Gagnebin, and Raymond, , vol. 1: Les Confessions: Autres textes autobiographiques (Paris, 1959), 5, p. 1046–7Google Scholar.
21 Augustine, Confessions 11.29.
22 Ibid., 10.8.
23 Ibid., 11.30.
24 Rousseau, , Confessions, 2, pp. 59–60Google Scholar.
25 Ibid., 4, p. 175.
28 Ibid., 7, p. 278.
27 Ibid., 6, p. 272. For a discussion of Rousseau's understanding of “human time” see Poulet, Georges, Studies in Human Time, trans, by Coleman, Elliott (Baltimore, 1956)Google Scholar.
28 Ibid., 5, p. 218.
29 Ibid., 8, p. 388.
30 Ibid., 1, p. 5.
31 Augustine, Confessions 9.1.
32 Rousseau, , Confessions, 4, p. 174Google Scholar.
33 Ibid., 1, p. 43; 4, p. 146.
34 Ibid., 11, p. 566. The Great Plot is discussed by Starobinski, , La transparence et l'obstacle, p. 65Google Scholar; Guehenno, Jean, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 2 vols., trans. John, and Weightman, Doreen (London, 1966), 1:430Google Scholar; Raymond, Marcel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: La Quête de soi et la rêverie (Paris, 1962), p. 126Google Scholar; de Saussure, Hermine, Rousseau et les manuscrits des “Confessions” (Paris, 1958), pp. 269–71Google Scholar.
35 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Essai sur l'origine des langues (A. Belin, 1817Google Scholar; reprint ed., Paris: Copedith, 1970), chap. 16, p. 537.
36 Ibid., p. 536.
37 Rousseau, , Confessions, 1, p. 5Google Scholar.
38 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Ébauches des Confessions in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Oeuvres complètes, eds. Gagnebin, and Raymond, , vol. 1: Les Confessions: Autres textes autobiographiques (Paris, 1959), p. 1151Google Scholar.
39 Rousseau, , Quatre lettres à Malesherbes, p. 1135Google Scholar.
40 Rousseau, , Discours sur l'inégalité, pt. 2, pp. 192–3Google Scholar.
41 Rousseau, , Rêveries, 5, pp. 1046–7Google Scholar.
42 Rousseau, , Confessions, 8, p. 362Google Scholar.
43 Ibid., 11, p. 585–6.
44 Ibid., 1, p. 38.
45 Ibid., 6, p. 244.
46 See Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Du contrat social ou, Principes du droit politique, in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Oeuvres complètes, eds. Gagnebin, and Raymond, , vol. 3: Du contrat social; Écrits politiques (Paris, 1964), bk. 2, chap. 10, p. 389Google Scholar: The legislator must “foresee” and “calculate.”
47 Rousseau, , Discours sur I'inégalité, pt. 2, p. 166Google Scholar.
48 Ibid., pp. 172–3.
49 Ibid., p. 169.
50 Rousseau, , Confessions, 1, p. 41Google Scholar.
51 Ibid., 5, p. 219.
52 Ibid. 11, p. 585.
53 Ibid., 7, p. 278.
54 Ibid., 3, p. 108.
55 Ibid., 6, p. 263.
56 Ibid., 7, p. 333.
57 Ibid., 12, p. 645.
58 Rousseau, , Discours sur l'inégalité, pt. 2, pp. 192–3Google Scholar.
59 Ibid., pt. 1, p. 158.
60 Ibid., p. 144.
61 See, for example, Confessions, 4, pp. 159–60Google Scholar.
62 Rousseau, , Confessions, 1, p. 14Google Scholar.
63 Ibid., p. 8.
64 Ibid., p. 9.
65 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Émile ou de l'éducation, in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Oeuvres complétes, eds. Gagnebin, and Raymond, , vol. 4: Émile; Éducation; Morale; Botanique (Paris, 1969), bk. 3, p. 675Google Scholar.
66 In connection with the radical tension between individual and society é see especially Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953), chap. 6Google Scholar and “On the Intention of Rousseau,” in Hobbes and Rousseau: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Cranston, Maurice and Peters, Richard S., Modern Studies in Philosophy (Garden City, New York, 1972)Google Scholar, also in Social Research 14 (1947)Google Scholar, and Greothuysen, B., J. J. Rousseau, 18th ed. (Paris, 1949)Google Scholar.
67 Rousseau, , Confessions, 1, p. 39Google Scholar.
68 Ibid., 3, p. 128.
