Abstract
This paper reconstructs Rousseau’s claims that the drive for recognition (amour propre) is the principal source of the evils that beset human societies as well as the precondition of what is most valuable in human life, including love, reason, and the striving for excellence. The danger of amour-propre is shown to lie in its relative character: in the fact that it seeks comparative standing in the opinions of other subjects. Because the drive for recognition is highly malleable, it can also be harnessed to form citizens who are capable of willing the general will in a just republic.
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Notes
- 1.
References to Rousseau’s texts use the following abbreviations: DI = Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, in The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 111–222; E = Emile, or on Education, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1979; OC = Oeuvres Complètes, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1959–1969), 4 vols.
References
Carnevali, Barbara. 2011. Romantisme et reconnaissance. Figures de la conscience chez Rousseau. Geneva: Droz.
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Dent, N. J. H. 1988. Rousseau. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Honneth, Axel. 2012. Untiefen der Anerkennung. Das sozialphilosophische Erbe Jean-Jacques Rousseaus. WestEnd. Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 9(1/2): 47–64 [In English as: “The depths of recognition: The legacy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” in Lifschitz, Avi (ed.), Engaging with Rousseau. Reaction and interpretation from the eighteenth century to the present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 189–206].
Neuhouser, Frederick. 2008. Rousseau’s theodicy of self-love: Evil, rationality, and the drive for recognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press [In German as: Pathologien der Selbstliebe (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012)].
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© 2021 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature
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Neuhouser, F. (2021). Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In: Siep, L., Ikäheimo, H., Quante, M. (eds) Handbuch Anerkennung. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19558-8_36
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19558-8_36
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