Encountering tragedy : Rousseau and the project of democratic order / Steven Johnston.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Johnston, Steven.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778.

Democracy.

Political science.

Physical Description:

xii, 189 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1999.

Summary:

Rousseau's work has long been fundamental to democratic thought. Steven Johnston here addresses some of the more paradoxical and problematic aspects of his ambiguous legacy. Johnston argues that the philosopher's real and imagined politics foster forms of violence -- even cruelty -- at odds with his republican ideals. How could an author committed to freedom and equality authorize new forms of domination? How could Rousseau's considerable theoretical successes simultaneously produce profound and persistent infecilities? Arguing that Rousseau's political prescriptions deliver something other than what they promise, Johnston offers answers to these difficult questions.

Johnston draws on selected texts in Rousseau's corpus -- including the underappreciated tracts on Poland and Corsica -- to interpret Rousseau first and foremost as an anatomist and architect of order. Encountering Tragedy contests Rousseau's munificent ontological presumption, probes the necessary and disturbing fictions of the Founding and delineates the constitutive role of enmity in his virtuous republic.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 155-186) and index.

ISBN:

080143596X

OCLC:

40881582