Encountering tragedy : Rousseau and the project of democratic order

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Title:

Author:

Johnston, Steven.

ISBN:

9780801435966

Personal Author:

Johnston, Steven.

Publication Information:

Ithaca, N.Y. ; London : Cornell University Press, 1999.

Physical Description:

xii, 189 p. ; 24 cm.

Contents:

1. On Tragedy. Rousseau's Legacy. Thinking Tragedy. The Ironic Road to Cruelty. Ontological Intimations. Virtue Wars. Political Incommensurabilities -- 2. On Nature. First Movement: Attunement. Second Movement: Ressentiment. Third Movement: Tragedy. Concluding with Hobbes. Eternal Returns -- 3. On Founding. Founding Paradoxes. Founding Violence. Founding Poetics. Founding Fictions. Founding Politics. Founding Futures -- 4. On Government. Governmentality. Government and Sovereignty. Government and Order. Government and Politics. The Government of Security and Liberty. The Government of Service and Signs. The Government of Life and Morality. The Government of Sexuality and Pleasure. The Government of Opinion and Culture. The Government of Sovereignty -- 5. On Enmity. Virtue and Enmity. Moral Enmity. Gender Enmity. Foreign Enmity. Civil Wars. On Cruelty. The Return of the Repressed.

Abstract:

"Johnston draws on selected texts in Rousseau's corpus - including the underappreciated tracts on Poland and Corsica - to interpret Rousseau first and foremost as an anatomist and architect of order. Encountering Tragedy contests Rousseau's munificent ontological presumptions, probes the necessary and disturbing fictions of the Founding, reconfigures the relationship between the multifarious arts of government and the exercise of sovereignty, and delineates the constitutive role of enmity in his virtuous republic. Moreover, the book offers a critical reading of Rousseau's gender politics, and dissects the attractions and dangers of both his patriotic sensibility and his morality-based politics."--BOOK JACKET.

Personal Subject:

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778-Contributions in political science.

Subject Term:

Democracy.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025422904	320.011 J73E 1999	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Rousseau's work has long been fundamental to democratic thought. Steven Johnston here addresses some of the more paradoxical and problematic aspects of his ambiguous legacy. Johnston argues that the philosopher's real and imagined polities foster forms of violence--even cruelty--at odds with his republican ideals. How could an author committed to freedom and equality authorize new forms of domination? How could Rousseau's considerable theoretical successes simultaneously produce profound and persistent infelicities? Arguing that Rousseau's political prescriptions deliver something other than what they promise, Johnston offers answers to these difficult questions. Johnston draws on selected texts in Rousseau's corpus--including the underappreciated tracts on Poland and Corsica--to interpret Rousseau first and foremost as an anatomist and architect of order. Encountering Tragedy contests Rousseau's munificent ontological presumptions, probes the necessary and disturbing fictions of the Founding, and delineates the constitutive role of enmity in his virtuous republic.