Founding and re-founding: a problem in Rousseau's political thought and action

Thesis

The foundation of political societies is a central theme in Rousseau's work. This is no surprise coming from a man who was born into a people who had their own celebrated founder and foundations, and immersed himself in the writings of classical republicans and the quasi-mythical histories of ancient city-states where the heroic lawgiver played an important and legitimate role in political foundations. However, Rousseau's propositional political writings (those written for Geneva, Corsica, and Poland) have been accused of being unsystematic and running the spectrum from conservative and prudent to radical and utopian. It is this seeming incongruence which is the subject of this thesis. In particular, it is argued that this confusion is born out the failure to recognize a systematic distinction between "founding" and "re-founding" political societies in both the history of political thought, and Rousseau's own work (a distinction in Rousseau which has rarely been noted, let alone treated to a study of its own). By recognizing this distinction one can identify two Rousseaus; the conservative and prudent thinker who is wary of making changes to established political systems and constitutional foundations (the re-founder), and the radical democrat fighting for equality, and claiming that no state is legitimate without popular sovereignty (the founder). In demonstrating this distinction, this thesis examines the ancient concept of the lawgiver, the growth and expansion of the idea leading up to the eighteenth century, Rousseau's own philosophic writings on the topic, and the differing political proposals he wrote for Geneva, Corsica, and Poland. The thesis argues that although there is a clear separation between these two types of political proposals, they remain systematically Rousseauvian.

Authors: Hill, M

• Publication date: 2015
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: Oxford University, UK
• Language: English
• Keywords: history of political thought; social contract; Corsica; Geneva; founding of political societies; enlightenment; eighteenth century; constitutions; Poland; Rousseau; Europe; political thought
• Subjects: History of Political Thought; History of Britain and Europe; Political Philosophy; Political Theory; Eighteenth-Century Britain and Europe; Modern Western philosophy; Political science; History; Intellectual History; Philosophy