Chapter 1 The State of Citizenship in Contemporary Democratic Theory Chapter 2 The General Will: ... more Chapter 1 The State of Citizenship in Contemporary Democratic Theory Chapter 2 The General Will: Rousseau's Procedural Argument Chapter 3 Rousseau and the Viability of Democratic Citizenship Chapter 4 The General Will in the French Revolution: Principles of Political Right Chapter 5 The General Will in the French Revolution: Creating Citizens Chapter 6 Limiting Sovereign Power: Benjamin Constant and Nineteenth Century French Liberalism Chapter 7 Tocqueville and the Compatibility of the Particular and the General Chapter 8 Conclusion: Citizenship as the General Will
The social contract was introduced by early modern thinkers—Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel P... more The social contract was introduced by early modern thinkers—Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf, and John Locke the most well-known among them—as an account of two things: the historical origins of sovereign power and the moral origins of the principles that make sovereign power just and/or legitimate. It is often associated with the liberal tradition in political theory, because it presupposes the fundamental freedom and equality of all those entering into a political arrangement and the associated rights that follow from the principles of basic freedom and equality. From that starting point, often conceptualized via the metaphor of a “state of nature”, social contract theory develops an account of political legitimacy, grounded in the idea that naturally free and equal human beings have no right to exercise power over one another, except in accordance with the principle of mutual consent.
... Reverie’s Revelations: The Ontological and Epistemological Dimensions of Rousseau’s Turn to R... more ... Reverie’s Revelations: The Ontological and Epistemological Dimensions of Rousseau’s Turn to Reverie. By Jason Neidleman. Published ...
Jean-Jacques Rousseau�s philosophy is often read as bipolar, exalting diametrically opposed pathw... more Jean-Jacques Rousseau�s philosophy is often read as bipolar, exalting diametrically opposed pathways to truth and happiness�the citizen on one hand, epitomized by Cato, and the solitary on the other, epitomized by Socrates. Whatever the differences among Rousseau�s various images of unity�and there are many�they are unified, I argue in this paper, by a desire for communion, whether it be communion
Silence, Implicite et Non-Dit chez Rousseau / Silence, the Implicit and the Unspoken in Rousseau, 2020
There are two silences in Rousseau’s theory of sovereign power, corresponding to two dimensions o... more There are two silences in Rousseau’s theory of sovereign power, corresponding to two dimensions of the general will, one substantive and one procedural. The first silence secures the substantive integrity of the general will at the moment when the content of the general will is imagined; the second secures the general will’s procedural integrity at the moment when citizens assemble to deliberate. Rousseau turns to silence at the most critical moments in his theory of sovereign power. In stripping these moments of language, Rousseau is able to evoke an ethos of unanimity that would otherwise be threatened by the particularizing effect of language. In this chapter, I locate and explain the significance of the two silences in Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty, each of which performs an important function in Rousseau’s argument, allowing him to defer problems he takes up elsewhere – problems which, the chapter concludes, lie at the core of Rousseau’s political theory.
The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evil, 2019
Rousseau’s interest in evil was—like his interest in most everything—practical rather than metaph... more Rousseau’s interest in evil was—like his interest in most everything—practical rather than metaphysical. He wanted to understand where evil came from in order to understand how it could be overcome. His was not an etymological story; neither was it a metaphysical or linguistic analysis. It was something closer to a historical anthropology or a genealogy. It was a story about the origin of evil, intended ultimately to illustrate for people living in corrupt societies a time in which evil had not yet come into existence. Rousseau’s genealogy of evil had two purposes: first, to demonstrate that evil is not a constitutive element of human nature; and, second, to suggest the possibility of evading or transcending the evil that had become so pervasive in modern societies. Evil, Rousseau argued, is not inherent in the world but rather originates in us, which in turn gives us the power to overcome it. Evil has a history that can be traced, a history that can reveal an alternative to the corruption that is currently so prevalent, a history that can show us a time when we were not yet evil, a history that can point the way toward a future in which we renounce evil in favor of good.
There is a growing body of scholarship in political theory that explores the ways in which a trag... more There is a growing body of scholarship in political theory that explores the ways in which a tragic heuristic can be useful for understanding politics. This scholarship has generally seen Rousseau as having articulated a political theory that might be illuminated by the application of a tragic heuristic but not one that might itself illuminate tragic predicaments in democratic politics. Readers have criticized Rousseau for inadvertently succumbing to a series of tragic conflicts, primarily by virtue of his insistence on a homogeneous political culture. Through an analysis of Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty, this essay argues that Rousseau has something more to contribute to the scholarship on tragedy and politics. His political theory includes both moments of tragic overreach as well as moments of tragic narration. More than simply a victim of tragic dissolution, Rousseau deployed his own tragic prism for conceptualizing what he called the “fundamental problem” of politics. This tragic prism, the essay concludes, expands the applicability of Rousseau’s political theory beyond the small, homogeneous republics he took as his model. The final section of the essay makes use of the “paradox of politics” to illustrate the applications of Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty to democratic theory writ large.
Chapter 1 The State of Citizenship in Contemporary Democratic Theory Chapter 2 The General Will: ... more Chapter 1 The State of Citizenship in Contemporary Democratic Theory Chapter 2 The General Will: Rousseau's Procedural Argument Chapter 3 Rousseau and the Viability of Democratic Citizenship Chapter 4 The General Will in the French Revolution: Principles of Political Right Chapter 5 The General Will in the French Revolution: Creating Citizens Chapter 6 Limiting Sovereign Power: Benjamin Constant and Nineteenth Century French Liberalism Chapter 7 Tocqueville and the Compatibility of the Particular and the General Chapter 8 Conclusion: Citizenship as the General Will
The social contract was introduced by early modern thinkers—Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel P... more The social contract was introduced by early modern thinkers—Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf, and John Locke the most well-known among them—as an account of two things: the historical origins of sovereign power and the moral origins of the principles that make sovereign power just and/or legitimate. It is often associated with the liberal tradition in political theory, because it presupposes the fundamental freedom and equality of all those entering into a political arrangement and the associated rights that follow from the principles of basic freedom and equality. From that starting point, often conceptualized via the metaphor of a “state of nature”, social contract theory develops an account of political legitimacy, grounded in the idea that naturally free and equal human beings have no right to exercise power over one another, except in accordance with the principle of mutual consent.
... Reverie’s Revelations: The Ontological and Epistemological Dimensions of Rousseau’s Turn to R... more ... Reverie’s Revelations: The Ontological and Epistemological Dimensions of Rousseau’s Turn to Reverie. By Jason Neidleman. Published ...
Jean-Jacques Rousseau�s philosophy is often read as bipolar, exalting diametrically opposed pathw... more Jean-Jacques Rousseau�s philosophy is often read as bipolar, exalting diametrically opposed pathways to truth and happiness�the citizen on one hand, epitomized by Cato, and the solitary on the other, epitomized by Socrates. Whatever the differences among Rousseau�s various images of unity�and there are many�they are unified, I argue in this paper, by a desire for communion, whether it be communion
Silence, Implicite et Non-Dit chez Rousseau / Silence, the Implicit and the Unspoken in Rousseau, 2020
There are two silences in Rousseau’s theory of sovereign power, corresponding to two dimensions o... more There are two silences in Rousseau’s theory of sovereign power, corresponding to two dimensions of the general will, one substantive and one procedural. The first silence secures the substantive integrity of the general will at the moment when the content of the general will is imagined; the second secures the general will’s procedural integrity at the moment when citizens assemble to deliberate. Rousseau turns to silence at the most critical moments in his theory of sovereign power. In stripping these moments of language, Rousseau is able to evoke an ethos of unanimity that would otherwise be threatened by the particularizing effect of language. In this chapter, I locate and explain the significance of the two silences in Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty, each of which performs an important function in Rousseau’s argument, allowing him to defer problems he takes up elsewhere – problems which, the chapter concludes, lie at the core of Rousseau’s political theory.
The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evil, 2019
Rousseau’s interest in evil was—like his interest in most everything—practical rather than metaph... more Rousseau’s interest in evil was—like his interest in most everything—practical rather than metaphysical. He wanted to understand where evil came from in order to understand how it could be overcome. His was not an etymological story; neither was it a metaphysical or linguistic analysis. It was something closer to a historical anthropology or a genealogy. It was a story about the origin of evil, intended ultimately to illustrate for people living in corrupt societies a time in which evil had not yet come into existence. Rousseau’s genealogy of evil had two purposes: first, to demonstrate that evil is not a constitutive element of human nature; and, second, to suggest the possibility of evading or transcending the evil that had become so pervasive in modern societies. Evil, Rousseau argued, is not inherent in the world but rather originates in us, which in turn gives us the power to overcome it. Evil has a history that can be traced, a history that can reveal an alternative to the corruption that is currently so prevalent, a history that can show us a time when we were not yet evil, a history that can point the way toward a future in which we renounce evil in favor of good.
There is a growing body of scholarship in political theory that explores the ways in which a trag... more There is a growing body of scholarship in political theory that explores the ways in which a tragic heuristic can be useful for understanding politics. This scholarship has generally seen Rousseau as having articulated a political theory that might be illuminated by the application of a tragic heuristic but not one that might itself illuminate tragic predicaments in democratic politics. Readers have criticized Rousseau for inadvertently succumbing to a series of tragic conflicts, primarily by virtue of his insistence on a homogeneous political culture. Through an analysis of Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty, this essay argues that Rousseau has something more to contribute to the scholarship on tragedy and politics. His political theory includes both moments of tragic overreach as well as moments of tragic narration. More than simply a victim of tragic dissolution, Rousseau deployed his own tragic prism for conceptualizing what he called the “fundamental problem” of politics. This tragic prism, the essay concludes, expands the applicability of Rousseau’s political theory beyond the small, homogeneous republics he took as his model. The final section of the essay makes use of the “paradox of politics” to illustrate the applications of Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty to democratic theory writ large.
This précis of my book, ROUSSEAU'S ETHICS OF TRUTH (Routledge, 2017), will be published by the Br... more This précis of my book, ROUSSEAU'S ETHICS OF TRUTH (Routledge, 2017), will be published by the Brazilian journal EDUCATIVA.
In The General Will is Citizenship, Jason Neidleman advances a republican conception of citizens... more In The General Will is Citizenship, Jason Neidleman advances a republican conception of citizenship, which is described and defended through a piercing analysis of the general will in the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, leaders of the French Revolution, and Restoration-era liberals. Neidleman explains that the "general will" is the will members of society have qua citizen, as opposed to the will they have qua private individual. It encapsulates tensions fundamental to egalitarian politics—tensions between individual autonomy and the collective good, between voluntarism and virtue, between popular will and rational will. Essential to the general will is its foundation in a conception of civic virtue, roughly understood as the subordination of private interests to the common good. Rather than appeal to universal reason or natural law, theorists of the general will look to the formation of citizens as the only way to secure justice and legitimacy, they attend to the social and cultural prerequisites to the flourishing of those principles. Consequently, all of the theorists studied in The General Will is Citizenship are concerned with the viability of democratic regimes and principles, as well as with the philosophical justification of those principles themselves. From within the framework of this dual emphasis, Neidleman constructs a picture of citizenship that both engages contemporary democratic theory and illuminates some of the more important changes and continuities in the French political tradition.
In 1758, Rousseau announced that he had adopted "vitam impendere vero" (dedicate life to truth) a... more In 1758, Rousseau announced that he had adopted "vitam impendere vero" (dedicate life to truth) as a personal pledge. Despite the dramatic nature of this declaration, no scholar has yet approached Rousseau’s work through the lens of truth or truthseeking. What did it mean for Rousseau to lead a life dedicated to truth?
This book presents Rousseau’s normative account of truthseeking, his account of what human beings must do if they hope to discover the truths essential to human happiness. Rousseau’s writings constitute a practical guide to these truths; they describe how he arrived at them and how others might as well. In reading Rousseau through the lens of truth, Neidleman traverses the entirety of Rousseau's corpus, and, in the process, reveals a series of symmetries among the disparate themes treated in those texts. The first section of the book lays out Rousseau’s general philosophy of truth and truthseeking. The second section follows Rousseau down four distinct pathways to truth: reverie, republicanism, religion, and reason. With a strong grounding in both the Anglophone and Francophone scholarship on Rousseau, this book will appeal to scholars across a broad range of disciplines.
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be useful for understanding politics. This scholarship has generally seen Rousseau as having articulated a political
theory that might be illuminated by the application of a tragic heuristic but not one that might itself illuminate
tragic predicaments in democratic politics. Readers have criticized Rousseau for inadvertently succumbing to a
series of tragic conflicts, primarily by virtue of his insistence on a homogeneous political culture. Through an
analysis of Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty, this essay argues that Rousseau has something more to contribute
to the scholarship on tragedy and politics. His political theory includes both moments of tragic overreach as
well as moments of tragic narration. More than simply a victim of tragic dissolution, Rousseau deployed his own
tragic prism for conceptualizing what he called the “fundamental problem” of politics. This tragic prism, the essay
concludes, expands the applicability of Rousseau’s political theory beyond the small, homogeneous republics he
took as his model. The final section of the essay makes use of the “paradox of politics” to illustrate the applications
of Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty to democratic theory writ large.
be useful for understanding politics. This scholarship has generally seen Rousseau as having articulated a political
theory that might be illuminated by the application of a tragic heuristic but not one that might itself illuminate
tragic predicaments in democratic politics. Readers have criticized Rousseau for inadvertently succumbing to a
series of tragic conflicts, primarily by virtue of his insistence on a homogeneous political culture. Through an
analysis of Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty, this essay argues that Rousseau has something more to contribute
to the scholarship on tragedy and politics. His political theory includes both moments of tragic overreach as
well as moments of tragic narration. More than simply a victim of tragic dissolution, Rousseau deployed his own
tragic prism for conceptualizing what he called the “fundamental problem” of politics. This tragic prism, the essay
concludes, expands the applicability of Rousseau’s political theory beyond the small, homogeneous republics he
took as his model. The final section of the essay makes use of the “paradox of politics” to illustrate the applications
of Rousseau’s theory of sovereignty to democratic theory writ large.
This book presents Rousseau’s normative account of truthseeking, his account of what human beings must do if they hope to discover the truths essential to human happiness. Rousseau’s writings constitute a practical guide to these truths; they describe how he arrived at them and how others might as well. In reading Rousseau through the lens of truth, Neidleman traverses the entirety of Rousseau's corpus, and, in the process, reveals a series of symmetries among the disparate themes treated in those texts. The first section of the book lays out Rousseau’s general philosophy of truth and truthseeking. The second section follows Rousseau down four distinct pathways to truth: reverie, republicanism, religion, and reason. With a strong grounding in both the Anglophone and Francophone scholarship on Rousseau, this book will appeal to scholars across a broad range of disciplines.