Hypocrisy and the philosophical intentions of Rousseau : the Jean-Jacques problem

Why did Rousseau fail-often so ridiculously or grotesquely-to live up to his own principles? In one of the most notorious cases of hypocrisy in intellectual history, this champion of the joys of domestic life immediately rid himself of each of his five children, placing them in an orphans' home. He advocated profound devotion to republican civic life, and yet he habitually dodged opportunities for political engagement. Finally, despite an elevated ethics of social duty, he had a pattern of turning against his most intimate friends, and ultimately fled humanity and civilization as such. In Hypocrisy and the Philosophical Intentions of Rousseau, Matthew D. Mendham is the first to systematically analyze Rousseau's normative philosophy and self-portrayals in view of the yawning gap between them. He challenges recent approaches to "the Jean-Jacques problem," which tend either to dismiss his life or to downgrade his principles. Engaging in a comprehensive and penetrating analysis of Rousseau's works, including commonly neglected texts like his untranslated letters, Mendham reveals a figure who urgently sought to reconcile his life to his most elevated principles throughout the period of his main normative writings. But after the revelation of the secret about his children, and his disastrous stay in England, Rousseau began to shrink from the ambitious philosophical life to which he had previously aspired, newly driven to mitigate culpability for his discarded children, to a new quietism regarding civic engagement, and to a collapse of his sense of social duty. This book provides a moral biography in view of Rousseau's most controversial behaviors, as well as a preamble to future discussions of the spirit of his thought, positing a development more fundamental than the recent paradigms have allowed for "Why did Rousseau fail-often so ridiculously or grotesquely-to live up to his own principles? In one of the most notorious cases of hypocrisy in intellectual history, this champion of the joys of domestic life immediately rid himself of each of his five children, placing them in an orphanage. Some less famous cases are comparably discrediting. He advocated profound devotion to republican civic life, and yet he habitually dodged opportunities for political engagement. This study is by no means meant to eliminate the gaps between Rousseau's normative teachings and his conduct. Even at his most aspirational, we will see several weaknesses and failures, some of them bizarre. As a whole, his life is a profoundly mixed affair, while his thought both emerged from it and radically transcended it. By pursuing the dialectic between his principles and his life, this book provides a kind of moral biography in view of his most controversial behaviors, as well as a preamble to future discussions of the spirit of his thought"-- Provided by publisher Cover Hypocrisy and the Philosophical Intentions of Rousseau Title Copyright Dedication CONTENTS Abbreviations and Conventions Introduction Chapter 1. I Could Never Have Been an Unnatural Father: Explaining the Discarded Children (ca. 1746–1778) Chapter 2. I Became Another Man: Reforms, Relapses, and the Soul of the Author (ca. 1749–1762) Chapter 3. It’s a Very Peculiar Citizen Who’s a Hermit: The Question of Civic Devotion (ca. 1754–1762) Chapter 4. A Lover of Peace or a Vile Insurgent? Confronting the Genevan Patriciate (ca. 1762–1768) Chapter 5. Excursus: The Revenge of Voltaire and the Autobiographical Turn (ca. October 1762–February 1765) Chapter 6. Only the Vicious Person Lives Alone: Social Duty and the Varieties of Solitude (ca. 1756–1778) Conclusion Notes Index Acknowledgments