Lessons on Rousseau

by Louis Althusser, G.M. Goshgarian (Translator)

The renowned French theorist dissects the leading Enlightenment philosopher

Althusser delivered these lectures on Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of Inequality at the École normale supérieure in Paris in 1972. They are fascinating for two reasons. First, they gave rise to a new generation of Rousseau scholars, attentive not just to Rousseau’s ideas, but also to those of his concepts that were buried beneath metaphors or fictional situations and characters. Second, we are now discovering that the “late Althusser’s” theses about aleatory materialism and the need to break with the strict determinism of theories of history in order to devise a new philosophy “for Marx” were being worked out well before 1985 in this reading of Rousseau dating from twelve years earlier, which introduces into Rousseau’s text the ideas of the void, the accident, the take, and the necessity of contingency.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

Published November 26, 2019

About the author

Louis Pierre Althusser (1918–1990) was one of the most influential Marxist philosophers of the 20th Century. As they seemed to offer a renewal of Marxist thought as well as to render Marxism philosophically respectable, the claims he advanced in the 1960s about Marxist philosophy were discussed and debated worldwide. Due to apparent reversals in his theoretical positions, to the ill-fated facts of his life, and to the historical fortunes of Marxism in the late twentieth century, this intense interest in Althusser's reading of Marx did not survive the 1970s. Despite the comparative indifference shown to his work as a whole after these events, the theory of ideology Althusser developed within it has been broadly deployed in the social sciences and humanities and has provided a foundation for much “post-Marxist” philosophy. In addition, aspects of Althusser's project have served as inspiration for Analytic Marxism as well as for Critical Realism. Though this influence is not always explicit, Althusser's work and that of his students continues to inform the research programs of literary studies, political philosophy, history, economics, and sociology. In addition, his autobiography has been subject to much critical attention over the last decade. At present, Althusser's philosophy as a whole is undergoing a critical reevaluation by scholars who have benefited from the anthologization of hard-to-find and previously unpublished texts and who have begun to engage with the great mass of writings that remain in his archives.

Reviews

[Jooseppi Räikkönen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The French have a way of imposing their own views on former thinkers while giving the impression of honesty and integrity of interpretation. Now I am no expert in Rousseau, but I have to say the ending of the book struck a chord and generally seems to capture Rousseau's spirit in earnest. I will let it speak for itself:

"That a utopian should criticize accomplished fact, that he should criticize the existing world, is common coin. That a utopian should erect, on his criticism of the accomplished fact, his criticism of the existing world, a utopian theory of the fact to be accomplished, of the world to be constructed - that too is common coin, it is business as usual. But, precisely the modality that distinguishes Rousseau's thought from that of other utopians is the critical self-consciousness in his utopia itself. It is the criticism brought to bear on the thought of utopia itself at the very moment in which the thought of utopia is thought. It is the origin of thought as loss. Thus, among all the reasons that have made Rousseau effective in history, I believe we must, for theoretical and political reasons, make a rather exceptional place for what is rather exceptional: his critical utopianism - Rousseau's acute awareness of, simultaneously, the necessity, but also the precariousness, of his audacity."

[Leo46 · Rating 5 out of 5]

As mentioned by the German, 2nd-generation Althusserian Frieder Otto Wolf whom I studied under, these last lectures on political theorists by Althusser (1970s) have a particular pertinence to the contemporary reading of the French Marxist. This book is no exception. We should feel lucky that the random student recorded most of it to be arranged in this edition. Split into three sections, Althusser effectively does a symptomatic reading (see, Reading Capital) of Rousseau’s “Second Discourse” (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality) by simultaneously interpreting Rousseau (inevitably) and extracting the ‘silence’/‘absence’ in Rousseau’s writing (what can be said about what he did NOT write, and why). Thus, just like how he made an even more Marxist reading of Marx, he here is more Rousseauesque (Althusser’s use) than Rousseau.

Lecture 1: Here, the general context of Rousseau’s project is presented as the emergence and revolutionary thwarting of the mistakes of the prior ‘state of nature’/‘social contract’ theorists (Hobbes and Locke). According to Althusser, the latter theorists came out of a particularly novel epoch after Machiavelli who theorized a ‘utopian,’ futural problematic of what is TO be done—national unity. However, Hobbes and Locke precisely began inside a context of national unity, and in trying to theorize the origin of human society/civilization in general, they made the mistake of imposing values/concepts only available in society to that which necessarily is OUTSIDE of society (=the origin, which is defined by this). Just like the Big Bang theory asserting the tightly packed matter unleashed by a strong centripetal force as the ORIGIN of the universe, it precisely cannot be defined or described by concepts of the universe (galaxies, solar systems, planets, etc.). The Big Bang is thus pure potency; we can only conceive of it as the to-be-universe (and thanks to Hegel and his successors, this futural potency is a type of negation or ‘lack’; look no further than the absolutely incomprehensible void or nothingness that is BEFORE the Big Bang). Thus, the social contract theorists get it wrong by saying that the state of nature (origin of society must emerge from here) is a state of war (Hobbes) or a state of human animals already imbued with natural rights (Locke)—Rousseau’s point is that these are precisely circular arguments or teleological. Of course, Hobbes and Locke can assert this; if war and rights emerged from a primitive form of war and rights, that’s so obvious! Here, we must return to the idea of the origin and rigorously analyze why the social contract theorists could not get it right—Rousseau decides to analyze the process itself of socialization: denaturation. This negative attitude gains us the insight that man has defined itself against nature (why else do we use the phrase ‘artificial?’), i.e., alienating nature from man and man from nature—denaturation. Additionally negative is the idea of ‘heart,’ which is used as the faculty of freedom but one of emotional and subjective essence. This is critical to Althusser’s reading in so far as it takes account of the irrationality of actors, i.e., in the process of socialization (denaturation), humans are not already ‘social creatures’ (again, a teleological fallacy) but have a spontaneity overdetermined by desires, drives, emotions, etc. The idea of ‘heart’ makes sure no social contract theory can make man rational from the start, i.e., strip man of its accidental nature that made it non-accidental (contingently reason-based) —for reason cannot be imbued in the human animal because it is not yet the social human (defined by reason).

Lecture 2: Now, ‘heart’ and its logic of the accidental is applied to the macro scale in which the dialectical upheavals/transitions from the state of pure nature all the way to modern society. These are described as the ‘cosmic accidents’ listed as follows: Accident I ‘change in the climate’ (end of state of pure nature), accident II ‘discover of metallurgy’ (end of youth of the world), and then the contract that ushers in the civil state (ending agriculture state of war). (See the diagram on page 75, the detail of this argument would make this review too long.) This can be seen as taking the anti-teleology to the extreme in an almost poesis-like manner; however, I believe the point of not having such a teleological pitfall also lends to the Althusserian notion of overdetermination in which the multi-causal property of historical rupture is no longer the teleological trope of historical materialism but rather its opposite. One of the best moments during this description is when Althusser posits Rousseau’s egalitarian and freedom-based project as progressing towards a denaturation of denaturation—that something before socialization needs to be returned to. This is no less than the Marxist concept of communism itself—the negation of negation; the progress from primitive communism, through all the epochal changes, to a communism with all the technological advancement of human history (and of course, capitalism). In other words, the denaturation of man produces what will end that process—the infinitely cruel socialization that includes war, slavery, oppression, exploitation, poverty, etc. (‘what the capitalists produce, above all, are their own gravediggers’ [Marx & Engels, “The Communist Manifesto”). After this commentary, Althusser returns to the question of the origin, in which it must be thought of as a ‘separate origin’ that is defined WITHOUT any sense of denaturation—the state of pure nature. Rousseau's answer for this state would be the ‘forest.’ This state is purely speculative and thus, some aspects may sound absurd, but it needs to be kept in mind that this is precisely a description of prehistory, which definitionally cannot be traced or known (since history is defined as all traceable events of humanity), according to Nietzsche. Thus, such a forest state is an origin that is pre-historical, BEFORE humans existed, and thus, a state where socialization has not happened yet. Here, the debunking of the common phrase “humans are social animals” as teleological is especially striking, particularly because of how it is wielded to justify many world-historical arguments today (humans only emerged as the becoming of a social animal from its predecessor). Nevertheless, this state of pure nature is a world of ‘human animals’ that have not developed conscious reason or language and have a glut of necessities, so they do not have to compete (the forest offers endless fruit, endless shelter, endless water, etc.). Thus, we see the parallel to Marxist communism in terms of more-than-enough resources to a forced scarcity that sees its final rupture as capitalism and thus, needs to be negated in socialism and communism (the distribution of the glut of capitalism to all for whatever they need)—the denaturation of denaturation, or, the negation of negation.

Lecture 3: In the final lecture, Althusser reviews this Rousseauesque conception of the evolution of Western society from the ‘separate origin’ of the forest, i.e., a non-circular origin that doesn’t project sociality into an origin that is not supposed to have it (the origin is BEFORE society, before the social contract). Thus, he argues that Rousseau conceives of an anti-right wing progression of society, i.e., one that does not assume domination as an innate desire of man. Of course, I am not trying to assert a political partisanship here, rather it is Rousseau's argument against ‘natural slavery’ (Aristotlean, Nietzschean, etc.) in which his project is “leftist” in the post-French Revolution sense. The picture Rousseau paints of proto-man is an utterly ambivalent one, taking only what one needs (fruit) and forgetting their partners, for which they reproduce with, and forgetting other proto-humans they interact with. There is no desire for domination when there is glut. “Rousseau’s man is naked too, and the animals in the world around him are also covered with fur, yet Rousseau’s man does not shiver and is not cold; he is not cold because it is not cold outside” (108). Thus, this is precisely anti-right wing because it does not imbue man with an innate desire for domination/power. Furthermore, this first cosmic accident that breaks proto-man out of the state of pure nature is the rupturing of an infinite reproduction (pure nature). Per the quoted description of Rousseau’s proto-man, the world is hospitable and thus, there is no need to compete nor collaborate—only the change of climate pushed them towards each other, breaking them into the progression that will be human history. “It is when nature becomes distant and hostile, and that man has to ‘wrest’ (the word is Rousseau’s) his subsistence from it at the price of hardships and labour. At this point, man, in his relation to nature, enters into distance and, through distance, into negativity, into mediations, and thence into language, reason, civilization, and progress” (108). The notion of MEDIATION is perhaps the most important for Althusser’s upshot of his reading of Rousseau, i.e., the denaturation of man is precisely a negating one (like Sartre who says that the first and only novel creation of man is nothingness: the faculty of negation). The human animal loses its unity with nature—its immediacy—that it could get food anytime, sleep anywhere, and have sex with anyone (the non-society that is the ‘forest’ is propelled into society/civilization). The world of mediations only spurns infinitely, accumulating infinitely, and now we can see Althusser’s upshot of a critique of capitalism: a society completely reliant on a singular mediation—the real abstraction that is money. Thus, we need the denaturation of denaturation—overthrowing capitalism and humanity’s discontents (this sounds necessarily like a new species, which makes a strange but interesting Nietzschean Marxism). Lastly, he brings it back to the beginning of the lecture series in which he praised Machiavelli; he now praises Rousseau in the same way in that Rousseau thinks ‘a fact to be accomplished,’ as opposed to a fact already accomplished (Hobbes and Locke); however, the fact is theoretical instead of practical (the latter would be Machiavelli). This appraisal is what Althusser calls Rousseau’s critical utopianism. “Now here is what I think is important: every possibility always seems to Rousseau to be suspended over an abyss. Every contract always seems to Rousseau to be sapped by its own death. Every reprise always seems to Rousseau to be condemned to its own loss. If the origin only exists as lost, although nothing is ever lost, it is because we must take history as it has made itself and men as they have made themselves, and then go to work to re-appropriate it, to re-appropriate history, in order to put it on different foundations, yet with no precedent, without benefit of any guarantee whatsoever that might provide protection against death and loss…Rousseau’s utopianism…is an extraordinarily acute awareness of its necessity and its impossibility, that is, of its precariousness” (139-140).

[Jolava]

suck suck fransman

[Cameron Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Circles

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Althusser's lectures on Rousseau's 2nd discourse are quite remarkable. I read these immediately after reading the discourse, and Althusser's explication of the text not only helped me understand Rousseau's radical break from other natural law theorists, such as Hobbes and Locke, but also how Rousseau's philosophy was a forerunner to Lenin.

[Raj Karan Gambhir · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW this is how you analyze a book. Really good!

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excel·lent, meravellosa, la lectura que fa Althusser del Segon Discurs de Rousseau —sobre la desigualtat dels homes. Althusser s’endinsa profundament en el text, fa del text mateix un camp d’investigació, on troba una nova concepció de la història —història com a suma de discontinuïtats, de contingències— que s’oposa a la concepció linial dels contractualistes; on troba, també, que Rousseau erigeix el seu propi edifici teòric, incipientment revolucionari, a partir de la crítica de la circularitat del pensament contractualista. El més important és aquí que Althusser presenta a Rousseau com un pensador de l’encontre, de la trobada, en què allò que passa no té més rao que la contingència i, precisament per això, precisament perquè el nostre estat polític és contingent i, per tant, absurd, pot ser canviat. A més a més, trobem a partir d’Althusser una lectura dialèctica de Rousseau, en què el desenvolupament històric de l’home, fora de qualsevol essencialisme, ve marcat per la seva relació amb la Natura. En definitiva, molt bon llibre.

[Dennis Lundkvist · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We can utter this sentence because what is reprised in the contract is freedom and pity as origin, whereas, in the origin, freedom and pity are non-existent. We can utter it, as well, when we recall the enigmatic sentence of Rousseau's in which, referring to the state of pure nature, he writes that it perhaps never existed (...) If we go on to ask what this origin as separate, virtual, and reprised might well be, we find another concept to designate it in Rousseau: the concept of >>loss<<. If the origin has never taken place, it is because it is lost. If it is reprised, if it is the repetition of something definite that has never taken place, it is because it is lost. If it repeats that which has not taken place, it is because it repeats what is lost. It is perhaps here, ultimately, that Rousseau is most profoundly self-consistent: in the idea that the loss I just spoke of is consubstantial with the origin." (p.137-138).

[Wyatt Browdy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating on its own and as a barometer of change in Althusser’s thinking