General Will in Political Philosophy by Janusz Grygieńć

Author:Janusz Grygieńć
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General will, politics, political theory, political thought, political philosophy, Rousseau, British idealism, Diderot, Pascal, Malebranche, Montesquieu, natural law, community, individualism, apriorism, contractualism, theories of the first look, contextualism, bradley, Bosanquet, moral duties, Green, teleologism, historicism, moral ideal, duty, universal will, posivitism, jusnaturalism, muirhead, Hetherington, Hobhouse, Hobson, liberalism, communitarianism, liberal communitarianism, rights, common good, relativism, universalism, negative freedom, individualism
ISBN: 9781845407209
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
Published: 2013-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

3.1. Novelty and limitations of the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We have already noted that it is perfectly justified to speak of British idealism as a philosophical phenomenon in its own right. After more than a century of domination by the empiricist tradition, George Berkeley’s nominalism, David Hume’s positivism, Locke’s empiricism and Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism, British universities allowed themselves to be seduced by the speculative thought originating in early nineteenth-century Germany. That which, from the perspective of continental Europe, may appear as a renaissance of idealism within the British context bears closer resemblance to an unexpected break in the uniform empiricist tendency of conducting studies based on experience above all. What in this context is applicable to Immanuel Kant or Hegel can also be stated of Rousseau. The author of the Social Contract, roundly criticised on the continent, was also rarely a positive inspiration for the British thinkers. If we are to seek a chain of inspiration, then it would be easy to see that it led rather from London to Les Charmettes and L’Ermitage, than the other way round. The balance of borrowings is definitely to Rousseau’s disadvantage. In pedagogical matters, he built on Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education ; in ethics, he owed a great deal to Shaftesbury, for instance; British theists influenced his thinking in religious matters, Alexander Pope delighted him with his providentialism. Yet it would be hard to list the English-speaking authors who publicly acquiesce to a debt of gratitude towards the author of the Social Contract. There is therefore no option but to agree with Bertil Pfannenstill, who claimed that British idealists spread not only German speculative thought in the Isles, but also Rousseau’s philosophy. Let us examine in detail the opinions which the representatives of this movement had of the Swiss philosopher.

3.1.1. From the utopia of atomism to the utopia of community

Let us start with Green, on whom Rousseau’s thought had a twofold effect - firstly, a direct influence, mostly as a reaction to the Social Contract. Despite the fact that Green’s works often display proof of his knowledge of both Emile and the Confessions, the weight he attributes to these works unequivocally suggests that he considered the Social Contract to be the only valid expression of Rousseau’s political philosophy. He did not analyse the practical examples of the general will presented in the New Heloise, Considerations on the Government of Poland or the Constitutional Project for Corsica. Instead, he presented the thought of the Swiss philosopher in a near-encyclopaedic manner, making him the subject of his lectures.

The second type of effect Rousseau had on Green was his “inherited” influence, through the German idealist tradition. In light of the gaps in his reading of the author of the Confessions, it would appear that precisely this reading of the Social Contract or Emile by Kant and Hegel was much more instrumental to the form the general will took in Green’s writing. Particularly Kant, reforging Rousseau’s ideas, not as ethical theories, but as a political vision

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