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Rousseau's Politic Argument in the Discourse on the Sciences and Arts
Author(s) -
Campbell Sally Howard,
Scott John T.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2005.00157.x
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , the arts , pride , politics , epistemology , language change , sociology , political philosophy , philosophy , political science , law , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry
Rousseau's arguments often turn on a correct understanding of the relationship between cause and effect. We argue that the principal cause‐effect argument of the Discourse is actually the opposite of the one Rousseau appears to posit in his work. Whereas he initially seems to argue that the sciences and arts corrupt morals, his ultimate argument is that the corruption of morals is the cause of the advancement of the sciences and arts and of their corrupting effects. Behind both moral corruption and the advancement of the sciences and arts lies a more remote cause: human pride and the unequal social and political conditions that result from pride and then foster it. Rousseau takes advantage of this complex causal relationship by simultaneously presenting an initial causal argument that gives his essay its paradoxical character and obscuring the ultimate causal argument of the work because of its implications as a critique of political authority and inequality.