Who Lost Nature? Rousseau and Rousseauism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6356408 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jonathan Marks (0000-0002-2594-7191) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 479-502 |
| Publication date | 2002-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Polity (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0032-3497 • E-ISSN: 1744-1684 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/polv34n4ms3235414 |
| OpenAlex | W2568937696 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
Some of the most profound political consequences for which Jean-Jacques Rousseau's thought is credited or blamed rest on his justification of nature, or physiodicy. That physiodicy, in turn, rests on a distinction between nature and history, which allows Rousseau to declare nature innocent of both the miseries human beings suffer in society and the difficulties that drive human beings into society in the first place. In this essay, I argue that Rousseau knowingly undermines the distinction between nature and history that he proposes early in the Second Discourse, and that he ultimately conceives nature not as a prehistoric beginning but as an end or perfection. Rousseau's thought, properly understood, moderates the extravagant hopes for social reform his successors entertained
Epistemology · Perfection · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought
| Citations per year | 0.31 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2010 - 2022 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |