Rousseau and the Spirit of Autonomy
A Pathos of Vigour
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21604301 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Etienne Cardin‐trudeau (0000-0001-8117-136X, University of Toronto, corresponding author), Etienne Cardin-Trudeau (Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 68-84 |
| Publication date | 2023-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Philosophical Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0967-2559 • E-ISSN: 1466-4542 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09672559.2023.2199029 |
| OpenAlex | W4362604429 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 16 |
Rousseau’s political project consists in ensuring that the citizens of the social contract, in uniting with each other, preserve their ability to self-legislate, or be autonomous. For this to work, however, members of the social contract would need to feel intrinsically linked to the political whole. This essay investigates what that feeling might be and how it can be grown. I argue that Rousseau develops a model of the energy or character of the being capable of autonomy, capable of experiencing themselves as part of the whole. That energy is a pathos of vigour, a strong sentiment and way of being that I develop from Rousseau’s educational precepts in Émile, which makes the citizen feel free and robust in dependence and boundedness. Autonomy, then, comes from the active exercise of oneself, physically and mentally, in an environment bounded by things, and this results in a sentiment of vigour, a vitality that produces confidence and poise, which then entices further activity
Aesthetics · Autonomy · Epistemology · Feeling · Pathos · Political science · Politics · Social contract · Sociology · Theology · Vitality · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Psychology · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought · Social Psychology
| Highly cited | No |
|---|