Australasian Political Studies Association Conference 2003
Hosted by the School of Government
University of Tasmania

Political Theory Stream

Rousseau’s Personal and Political Relation to Time

Andrew R Russ
PhD Candidate, Centre for European Studies
University of Adelaide

Abstract:

The most contentious aspect of Rousseau's political thought is the role of time and history in the production of political life. On the one hand there are historicist readings that grant Rousseau the title of having discovered humanity's radically historical development, opening up the passage of time to invigorated social discovery. On the other hand there are those adamant that Rousseau is entirely disinterested in history, thus view his concept of time as a vast temporal descent in need of escaping from. Both of these conflicting approaches have significant bearing upon the interpretation of Rousseau's concept of nature, critique of society, evolution of the species, and Social Contract.

To shed new light on this dispute it is helpful to observe how time and history operate in his least political, but most personal work ... his autobiographical project. By studying the narrative structures of his three autobiographies, we are able to see the whole movement as an attempt to transform the "opposition, conflict and violence of linear time and lived experience", into a timeless appreciation and escape into the eternal. Elsewhere in his canon time and history are shifting, confused and contradictory entities, whereas the three autobiographies provide us with the most complete account of the man's attempt to defend the past, explain the present, create and annul the future. For one of political philosophy's most personal thinkers, only by examining his convoluted personal relationship to time and history can we provide definitive confirmation of his views on their connection to politics. Through this approach we can fuse the two opposing interpretations regarding this subject, firstly by recognising Rousseau's desperate need to engage with and explain time and history and secondly by being sensitive to his overwhelming revulsion of and necessity to escape from the effects of these forces.