Rousseau and Hobbes : Nature, free will, and the passions / Robin Douglass.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Douglass, Robin, author.

Contributor:

Oxford University Press, publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques.

Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.

Hobbes, Thomas.

Political science--Philosophy.

Political science.

Physical Description:

viii, 220 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition, impression 1.

Other Title:

Rousseau & Hobbes

Nature, free will and the passions

Place of Publication:

Oxford, U.K. : Oxford University Press, 2015.

Summary:

Robin Douglass presents the first comprehensive study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's engagement with Thomas Hobbes. He reconstructs the intellectual context of this engagement to reveal the deeply polemical character of Rousseau's critique of Hobbes and to show how Rousseau sought to expose that much modern natural law and doux commerce theory was, despite its protestations to the contrary, indebted to a Hobbesian account of human nature and the origins of society. Throughout the book Douglass explores the reasons why Rousseau both followed and departed from Hobbes in different places, while resisting the temptation to present as either a straightforwardly Hobbesian or anti-Hobbesian thinker. On the one hand, Douglass reveals the extent to which Rousseau was occupied with problems of a fundamentally Hobbesian nature and the importance, to both thinkers, of appealing to the citizens' passions in order to secure political unity. On the other hand, Douglass argues that certain ideas at the heart of Rousseau's philosophy-free will and the natural goodness of man-were set out to distance him from positions associated with Hobbes. Douglass advances an original interpretation of Rousseau's political philosophy, emerging from this encounter with Hobbesian ideas, which focuses on the interrelated themes of nature, free will, and the passions. Douglass distances his interpretation from those who have read Rousseau as a proto-Kantian and instead argues that his vision of a well-ordered republic was based on cultivating man's naturally good passions to render the life of the virtuous citizen in accordance with nature. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The French Reception of Thomas Hobbes 21

Nicole, Bayle, and the Moral-Political Emphasis 24

Malebranche's Critique of Hobbes 33

Barbeyrac, Burlamaqui, and Natural Law 37

Montesquieu Against Hobbes 46

Diderot and the Encyclopédie 51

Hobbes Before Rousseau 58

2 The State of Nature and the Nature of Man 61

The State of Nature and the State of War 68

Free Will and Man's Moral Nature 76

Natural Goodness and the Recovery of the Golden Age 82

Harmony, Contradiction, and the Hobbesian Moment 93

Rousseau's Critique, Reappraised 98

3 Sovereignty and Law 104

From the State of Nature to Political Society 107

Free Will, Slavery, and Obligation 114

Sovereignty Inverted 121

Freedom Preserved 127

Law, Nature, and Denaturing 137

Unity and Civil Religion 144

4 Ordering the Passions 149

Neutralizing amour-propre 152

Cultivating Love of Fatherland 160

Free Will and Virtue 167

Reason and the Passions 173

Hobbes and Fear 178

Of Love and Fear 185.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [203]-217) and index.

ISBN:

9780198724964

0198724969

OCLC:

892458837