Course info

What kind of political freedom is possible in the modern world? In particular, is republican political freedom possible, the freedom of citizens as members of an autonomous people? Rousseau argued that such freedom is possible now, despite the many ways in which politics has changed since the republics of ancient Athens and Rome. We will examine this revolutionary idea by way of a close reading of Rousseau's The Social Contract, giving special attention to the idea of popular sovereignty, and to how, according to Rousseau, that idea can be realized in practical politics. We will bring Rousseau's ideas into focus through a contrast with the equally revolutionary political vision of Thomas Hobbes, who insisted that the ancient idea of liberty had always been impossible to realise, and that political society was only possible where there was absolute subjection to a sovereign power. Hobbes's argument rests on a particular theory of human nature, and our engagement with Rousseau will begin with the response he gives to Hobbes in the historicized analysis of human nature presented in his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality.