<i>The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau</i> Revisited

The aim of this article is to re-examine one of Cassirer’s most famous and influential works in the history of philosophy: The Question of Jean Jacques Rousseau. The problem that Cassirer investigates is the tension in Rousseau’s thought between his republicanism and his primitivism. While his primitivism saw society and the state as evil and upheld the virtues of the noble savage and the state of nature, his republicanism maintains that the republic is a form of society and state which can avoid the problems of the state of nature. Cassirer argued that this tension could be avoided if the natural goodness of man is interpreted as an implicit form of the moral autonomy which he finally attains in a republic. I argue that Cassirer underrates the role of passion in Rousseau’s ethics and overrates the role of reason; he portrays Rousseau as a rationalist when he is more of a sentimentalist who stresses the importance of pity for the foundation of morals. Cassirer’s interpretation makes an optimist of Rousseau, who allegedly believes the tension between natural and republican man can be overcome in history. But I contend that there is a deep pessimism in Rousseau’s thought deriving from his primitivism, his belief that no form of society and state can ever completely redeem the lost innocence of the state of nature.