Timetable:
The course runs during the second semester. The lectures are on Wednesdays
at 11am in Lecture Room One (3-5 Woodland Road) and the seminar groups
meet at 2 and 3 on Thursdays in my room (top floor 9 Woodland Road).
Contact:
You can contact the lecturer by email (C.Bertram@bristol.ac.uk)
or telephone (928 9140). Or come along to his office hours: Tuesdays and
Thursdays 11.10-12.00
Please make sure to check your email account and the unit
weblog regularly for
announcements regarding this course.
Credit:
PHIL 30026 carries 20 credits. In order to obtain the credit you
must: i) attend the weekly seminars; ii) deliver at least one
satisfactory presentation in a seminar; iii) submit one essay by the
end of the Spring term; and iv) pass (or make a fair attempt at
passing) an examination in the summer term.
Mode of Assessment:
The summative assessment for this course is by examination only.
Coursework (one essay and a presentation at a seminar) is also
assessed, for formative and diagnostic purposes, with feedback provided
by the seminar instructor. Note that although your coursework
assessment will not officially count towards the final mark, it is
registered in an end-of-semester report.
Teaching Methods:
There will be two sessions each week. The first of these will
consist of a lecture by CB, the second will take the form of a seminar
in which we shall interrogate some text together. Each week a student
will have the task of presenting to the seminar an introductory
analysis of the prescribed passage for that week, that introduction
will be followed by a discussion led by CB. In order to obtain the
credits for this unit you are required to submit at least one
satisfactory essay and make a satisfactory presentation or its
equivalent at the seminar.
Weblog:
I'm running a weblog in parallel with this unit as an experiment. I'll
be making announcement about the course there, posting material
relevant to each week's teaching, responding to points people made in
the seminar that I've thought further about, linking to Rousseau
stories in the media etc etc. The weblog is called
Rousseau and
you can leave comments about individual posts to which I shall respond as
appropriate. Remember though, that anything on the blog (including
comments) is open to the whole internet.
Essay Topics:
You must submit to the office, by the end of the Spring term,
an essay of not more than 2,500 words on one of the following topics:
- Does the Social Contract solve the social problem posed
by Rousseau in his other writings. Does this solution involve the
'denaturing' of individuals?
- Explain and comment upon Rousseau's distinction between the
general will and the will of all.
- 'It is not consciousness that determines social being but social
being that determines consciousness' (Marx). Discuss with reference to
Rousseau.
- What can we make of Rousseau's insistence that man is by nature
good but has been corrupted by society?
- Why does Rousseau reject the idea that sovereign authority may be
vested in representatives?
- 'At least Rousseau allows that a man can be either an individual
or a citizen. He does not allow a woman to be either'. Discuss.
- What, according to Rousseau, is the role of religion in a
legitimate state?
- Should we understand Rousseau as a partisan of direct democracy?
- Is the rule of the general will compatible with the freedom of
the individual?
- Why does Rousseau believe the degeneration of the state to be
inevitable?
Reading list and course programme:
(Note: I also maintain a page on Rousseau-related
web-resources)
Reading (books)
Rousseau
The standard edition of Rousseau's work in French is the Pleiade
edition edited by Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond. Volume III
contains most of his political writings.
There are many translations of the Social Contract and the Discourses.
For many years, the standard one has been G.D.H. Cole (revised by J.H.
Brumfitt and J.C. Hall), published in the Everyman library. It
is easy to get hold of second-hand copies of this.
I shall normally use translations by Victor Gourevitch in The
Discourses and Other Early Political Writings and The Social
Contract and Other Later Political Writings (both Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997).
I shall also make reference to:
Emile , trans. Allan Bloom (Penguin, 1979); But see also the
ILT Web retranslation by Grace G. Roosevelt (here
).
The Confessions, trans J.M. Cohen (Penguin, 1954);
Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues, trans Bush, Kelly
and Masters (University of New England Press, 1990); and
The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, trans P. France
(Penguin, 1979).
A good collection of Rousseau's broader writings is John Hope Mason
(ed.)
The Indispensable Rousseau (Quartet, 1979).
Many of these texts are available on the internet via the Jean-Jacques
Rousseau Association.
You can hear an excerpt from his opera "Le Devin du Village" from here
.
2. Works by others
Biography
As a corrective to Rousseau's own account of himself, you might want
to consult Maurice Cranston's masterly three-volume biography, Jean
Jacques; The Noble Savage; and The Solitary Self (all
Penguin, 1983-1996).
General Studies
Robert Wokler,
Rousseau
Marshall Berman,
The Politics of Authenticity (New York,
1970). Inspiring, but hard to obtain.
Ernst Cassirer,
The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (U.
Indiana Press, 1954). A brilliant synthesis.
N. J. H. Dent,
Rousseau (Blackwell, 1988) contains a
reversal of tradtional evaluations as found in e.g.,
John Charvet,
The Social Problem in the Philosophy of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Cambridge, 1974).
Tracy B. Strong,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Politics of the
Ordinary (Sage, 1994) is an inspiring but sometimes obscure work.
Timothy O'Hagan's
Rousseau in Routledge's
Arguments of
the Philosophers, is worthy but not as exciting as,say, Dent or
Strong.
Jean Starobinski,
Transparency and Obstruction (Chicago,
1988) is highly influential.
Work specifically on the political philosophy
Roger D. Masters,
The Political Philosophy of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau
Judith Shklar,
Men and Citizens
James Miller,
Rousseau, Dreamer of Democracy
Zev Tractenberg,
Making Citizens
The key (untranslated) work in French is Robert Derathé,
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau et la science politique de son temps (Paris, 1970) but
another work that is useful in situating Rousseau's political
philosophy in context is
Keohane, N.O. (1980)
Philosophy and the State in France.
Commentaries on the social contract
Christopher Bertram,
Rousseau and
The Social Contract (London: Routledge, 2003).
Hilail Gildin,
Rousseau's Social Contract (Chicago, 1983).
Noone, J.B. (1981)
Rousseau's 'Social Contract': A Conceptual
Analysis.
Papers on specific topics are suggested below, but the following
papers should be read as guides to the difficulty of apprehending the
content of a political text in a foreign language that is over two
centuries old:
Quentin Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding in the History of
Ideas',
History and Theory 8 (1969).
Timothy O'Hagan, 'On Rousseau's Social Contract: Translation and
Exegesis'
History of Political Thought vol. 3, no. 2 (1982).
Ellen Meiksins Wood, 'The State and Popular Sovereignty in French
Political Thought: A Genealogy of Rousseau's "General Will",
History
of Political Thought, vol. 4, no. 2 (1983).
Schedule of Lectures and Seminars
(essential reading is marked with an *)
Week One: Rousseau: The Man
*Bertram, ch. 1
*The Confessions (yes, I know this is a lot but it is highly
entertaining and easy to read. As much as you can).
The study of Rousseau that best situates his political thought in
the context of his life is Miller (see above).
Quentin Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding in the History of
Ideas',
History and Theory 8 (1969) also in James Tully, ed.
Meaning
and Context: Quentin Skinner and his Critics.
Week Two: History: Selfhood and Modernity
*Discourse on Inequality
Essay on the Origin of Languages
Bertram, ch. 2
Charvet
Dent
Lovejoy, A.O., 'The supposed primitivism of Rousseau's "Discourse on
Inequality"' in his
Essays in the History of Ideas.
Joshua Cohen, 'The Natural Goodness of Humanity', in Herman,
Korsgaard and Reath eds,
Learning from the History of Ethics.
Also at: web.mit.edu/polisci/www/research/goodness.html
Week Three: Rousseau, Modernity, the Self (continued)
*Discourse on Inequality (finish it if you haven't already).
*Emile (E), especially the beginning and the first forty pages of
book 4; but also try to look at the discussions of the idea of
property, of
Robinson Crusoe, and of the magician.
Bertram, ch. 2
Charvet
Dent, discussion of E.
Dent, 'Rousseau on Amour-Propre',
Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume LXXII (1998) p. 65
Gauthier, D., 'The Politics of Redemption', in his
Moral Dealing.
Taylor, C. (1992) 'The politics of recognition', parts 1-3, in
Multiculturalism
and the 'Politics of Recognition, ed. A. Gutmann, enlarged edition
as
Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition,
1994.
Week Four: Man is born free but is everywhere in chains
*SC title page, 'notice', I. Introductory para, I.i (first para).
*'The General Society of the Human Race', from the
Geneva
Manuscript. Here
is a translation by me .
'The State of War', in the Gourevitch edition or Grace G. Roosevelt.
'A Reconstruction of Rousseau's Fragments on the State of War',
History
of Political Thought (1987).
*Bertram, ch. 3.
In general, for weeks 4-9 consult, ad lib, Dent, Charvet, Gildin,
Noone, Shklar, Masters and Hall. If your French is good enough, you
could also consult the commentary contained within Maurice Halbwachs's
edition of
Du Contrat Social (there's a copy in the library).
For this week see especially Hall, ch. 4.
MacAdam, J.I., 'The Discourse on Inequality and the Social
Contract',
Philosophy, Oct 1972, reprinted in J. Lively &
A. Reeve eds.
Modern Political Theory from Hobbes to Marx.
Week Five: Power versus Legitimacy
*SC I.1-5
Locke,
Second Treatise
*Bertram, ch. 4.
Gildin, ch. 1.
Week Six: The Social Pact and the Sovereign
*SC I.6-9 and IV.2
*Bertram, ch. 5.
See also especially Gildin, Noone, Masters.
Week Seven: Sovereignty and the general will
*SC II passim (esp. II.1-6) and I.9 , III.13-18 and IV.1-2
* Bertram, ch. 6.
*Neuhouser, F. (1993) 'Freedom, dependence and the general will',
Philosophical
Review 102:3
See also Gildin, Noone, Masters, Strong, Dent, Trachtenberg, Riley.
Jones, W.T. (1987) 'Rousseau's general will and the problem of
consent',
J. of the History of Philosophy 25
Cohen, J. (1986) 'Reflections on Rousseau: autonomy and democracy',
Philosophy
and Public Affairs 15:3 and in Christopher W. Morris,(ed.)
The
Social Contract Theorists.
Runciman, W.G. and Sen, A.K., 'Games, Justice and the General Will',
in
Mind (1965).
Strong, ch. 3.
Riley, P., 'A Possible Explanation of Rousseau's General Will', in
Morris (ed.)
The Social Contract Theorists and in the
American
Political Science Review 64:1 (1970).
Ripstein, A., 'The General Will', in Morris,(ed.),
The Social
Contract Theorists and in
History of Philosophy Quarterly 9:1
(1992)/
Brian Barry, 'The Public Interest' in A. Quinton ed.
Political
Philosophy.
Steven G. Affeldt, 'The Force of Freedom: Rousseau on Forcing to Be
Free'
Political Theory, 27:3 (June 1999).
Week Eight: The Lawgiver, culture and virtue
*SC II. 7-12
*Emile, book 1, discussion of the role of the tutor (at p. 50 and
thereabouts of the Penguin edition)
Considerations on the Government of Poland chs 1 and 2.
Essay on the Origin of Languages (esp ch. 20)
*Bertram, ch. 7.
Christopher W. Kelly "To Persuade without Convincing": The Language
of Rousseau's Legislator", in
American Journal of Political Science
vol. 31:2 (May 1987) pp. 321–35.
Gildin, Noone, Masters
Dent, ch. 6.
Trachtenberg, ch. 3.
Shklar, J.N., 'Rousseau's Images of Authority',
American
Political Science Review, vol. 58 (1964).
Week Nine: Government and Sovereign
*SC III. 1-11 (and III, chs 12-18; IV.2)
*Bertram, ch. 8
Dent, ch. 6
Gildin, Noone, Masters
Bertrand de Jouvenel, 'Rousseau's Theory of the Forms of
Government', in Cranston, ed
., Modern Political Philosophies.
Strong, ch. 3.
Cole, G.D.H.,
Modern Social Theory.
Frank Marini, 'Popular Sovereignty but Representative Government:
The Other Rousseau', in
Midwest Journal of Political Science,
vol. 11, Issue 4 (1967).
Week Ten: Civil Religion
*IV.8
'Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar' in
Emile.
*Bertram, ch. 9.
*Leigh,
Rousseau and the problem of
tolerance in the eighteenth century (Oxford, 1978)
Bertram, "The Role of Rousseau's Civil Religion" (unpublished ms).
Dent, ch. 7
Noone, ch. 7.
Gildin, ch. 6
Robert Derathé, 'La Religion Civile selon Rousseau', in
Annales
de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau 35 (1959-62).
Week Eleven: Impact and Influence
Bertram, ch. 10.
Cassirer,
The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (esp.the
introduction by Peter Gay).
Coletti,
From Rousseau to Lenin.
Wokler, 'Rousseau and Marx', in Miller and Siedentop (eds),
The
Nature of Political Theory.
Kant, Groundwork.
Week Twelve: Totalitarian democracy?
Talmon, J.L. (1952)
The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy,
ch. 3
Berlin, I. [1958] 'Two concepts of liberty', secs. 2-5, in his
Four
Essays on Liberty 1969, also in A. Quinton ed.
Political
Philosophy 1967
Plamenatz, J. [1965] 'Ce qui ne signifie autre chose, sinon qu'on le
forcera d'être libre', in Cranston & Peters eds.
Hobbes
and
Rousseau
Chapman, J.W. (1968)
Rousseau - Totalitarian or Liberal?
Dodge, G.H. ed. (1971)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Authoritarian
Libertarian?
Wokler, R. (1979) 'Rousseau's perfectibilian libertarianism' in Alan
Ryan ed.
The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin
Wokler, R. (1987) 'Rousseau's two concepts of liberty' in G. Feaver
& F. Rosen eds.
Lives, Liberties and the Public Good
GENERAL E-RESOURCES
For electronic journals have a look at:
- www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/Dept/journals.html
and for useful philosophy links you should try:
- www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/Dept/Links.htm
- www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/VL/index.html
PHILOSOPHER'S INDEX:
Indexing and abstracts from books and over 400 journals. A major
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of information in the area of aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic,
and metaphysics, and the philosophy of various disciplines e.g.
education,
history, law, religion and science. Further information and search help
are available on the CD-ROM which is available from the Arts and Social
Sciences Library or can be searched on the CD-ROM network of databases
which is available on PCs in all the branch libraries, in the
Philosophy department library (in the basement) and also accessible
from the Arts Faculty Graduate Centre,
7 Woodland Road, and the Psychology Department. To access a particular
CD-ROM database from one of these PCs click on:
- Start > Programs > DiscPort Launch > CD menu
The networked CD-ROM menu should then open and you can double click on
the particular database that you wish to use to start it up.
Routledge Encycopaedia of Philosophy On-Line (REP Online):
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Philosophy.
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