Rousseau as Author: Consecrating One's Life to the Truth

Taking Rousseau’s motto, vitam impendere vero, as his point of departure, Christopher Kelly argues that "for Rousseau, ‘consecrating one’s life to the truth’ meant both publicly taking responsibility for what one publishes and, also, publishing only those things that will be of public benefit" (1-2). That is, "any writing for publication is necessarily an act of (good or bad) citizenship, whereas philosophic investigation of the truth is necessarily indifferent to the effect of that investigation on others" (140). Speaking as a citizen, the philosopher Rousseau seems to have believed Socrates deserved his hemlock. In today’s liberal democracies, of course, Socrates would be immune from prosecution. But as Eva Brann once remarked, "The great question to be considered is: Ought such immunity to be a source of high satisfaction or of deep misgiving?" (Interpretation 7.2 [1978]: 21). Though few might fully agree with Rousseau’s answer to this question, none should ignore the case he makes on behalf of healthy political community. The problems and questions Kelly illicits from Rousseau’s various works and letters should cause anyone who is paid to think and publish to reconsider the public responsibility of being an author or teacher.

Kelly’s first chapter reveals the discrepancies between Rousseau and his contemporaries with respect to something we would not think twice about today: putting one’s own name on one’s publication. Wishing to minimize personal risk, authors such as Voltaire, Diderot, and the Baron d’Holbach would often publish anonymously, even falsely ascribing their more dangerous works to others. Though this (sometimes) protected them from the law, it did not have to subtract from their fame; authorship was usually an open secret. They could challenge religious and political orthodoxy, avoid public responsibility, and enhance their reputation. Rousseau charged them with irresponsibility and vanity. His decision to put his name on the title pages of his works, and sometimes in the very title, was a deliberate affront. "In effect, Rousseau turns a favorite tactic of these writers back against them: they try to strip the veil of disinterestedness and benevolence away from political and religious authorities, and Rousseau strips this same veil away from them" (45).

Rousseau’s openness should not be confused with a desire to say everything, however. He distinguished between politically salutary and dangerous truth, and an author, he believed, had no duty to share dangerous or useless truths. Rousseau charged his contemporaries with missing this important truth, or willfully abandoning it for the sake of furthering their reputations. Not unlike his condemnation in the First Discourse of the artists, the philosophers, he charged, are motivated by vanity. They publish revealing and shocking theories, endangering the opinions necessary to sustain healthy political life. The morals of a particular people are "the product of unexamined prejudices," and as such "they are particularly vulnerable to the sort of rational scrutiny made by philosophers" (32). Moreover, "philosophy does not require a public war against all prejudice in the way that some of contemporaries thought," nor does it need new converts (40). "To overstate only slightly, philosophic education is unnecessary, impossible, and dangerous" (169).

Given his criticism of philosophers and artists it would seem that Rousseau might condemn all the arts in society, but Kelly points out the salubrious function Rousseau believes the arts can serve if they cause citizens to emulate worthy models. The arts can serve a social function "if they can be made to contribute to a better form of social dependence"this is the function" of the great, heroic legislator spoken of in the Social Contract (62). The legislator must create in the public the disposition to "will generally" rather than to think narrowly of themselves, but he cannot rely on reason to do this. He must persuade without convincing. "Persuasion involves appeal to something other than reason, while convincing involves rational demonstration" (65). The necessity of turning to art arises because Rousseau believes "there is no necessary connection between possessing a clear understanding of what justice is and having a disposition to be just" (63). So whereas philosophy is politically impotent, the arts, especially music, can be effective because of their power to imitate, not nature, but rather human emotions. Rousseau "turns Plato on his head" by giving priority to representations of feelings that evoke in the listener similar emotions to those they would feel if presented by the object in question (71).

This raises the question whether Rousseau thought he was engaged in a legislator-type activity, since his novels are a kind of music. Kelly answers "yes" and "no." Rousseau did not attempt to legislate for a people in the way Numa did for Rome or Lycurgus did for Sparta. He thought the times no longer permitted such activity, and, according to Kelly, Rousseau did not have the requisite strength of soul to be a legislator. But Rousseau did deploy his powerful rhetorical gifts to create works of fiction intended to move his audience to emulate fictional characters like Julie. Curiously, "Rousseau discusses someone who found himself in circumstances similar to those in which Rousseau found himself" (80). Speaking of Jesus, Rousseau once wrote that, "unable by himself to make a revolution among his people, he wanted to make one, through his disciples in the Universe" (80).

In what is perhaps the most interesting part of the book, Kelly turns to the issue of whether Rousseau is a philosopher and, if so, how he conducted his philosophic as opposed to public writing. Proceeding through an examination of Rousseau’s unpublished "Fiction, ou Morceau allégorique sur la révélation," Kelly returns to the provocative possibility that Rousseau follows neither the example of the Enlightenment nor of Socrates but rather of Jesus. The "son of man" presented in the "Fiction" "offers the populace not philosophy but rather a new object of worship in his example. He teaches not with rational demonstrations, but with fables and parables that have an inspiring effect on even the least intelligent of his audience" (164).

Kelly’s portrait of Rousseau, it might be said, demonstrates the degree to which Rousseau’ desire to remove philosophy from the public stage contributed to a later age of ideologically driven politics. It is unfortunate Kelly does not draw this out in detail, criticize Rousseau’s view, or balance it with further reflections on alternative perspectives, especially those that are less inclined to throw philosophy out of the city simply because the political is and always will be the realm of opinion rather than knowledge.

Kelly argues that Rousseau abandoned the notion of being a great legislator because he lacked the necessary strength of soul. Yet Kelly concludes that Rousseau was a philosopher and that "philosophic understanding provides the necessary precondition for other activities such as writing novels like Julie," and "may well be valuable because it contributes to the heroic activity of a legislator or the imaginative activity of a poet or composer" (181). If Kelly is right about the "Fiction," Rousseau wished not only to imitate Jesus but to replace him so as to start a revolution "through his disciples in the Universe." One may wish to reconsider, then, the question whether Rousseau relinquished the task of legislating for tiny Corsica simply because he truly lacked the strength of soul or the ambition. It would not be the first time an unarmed prophet assumed the pose of humility and simplicity for the sake of introducing new modes and orders.