Freedom And Virtue

This paper intends to make a textual interpretation of Rousseau's political philosophy, which generates a kind of thinking attempt in the careful text-reading.This paper's orientation is one note of Rousseau's self understanding. It looks forward to showing the integrity of Rousseau's political philosophy thought in the comparison between the Classic political philosophy and the Modern Political Philosophy. So all of this implies a hidden statement that we can not interpret Rousseau's political philosophy in the field of the Modern Political Philosophy entirely, just as what many thinkers have done. The Modern political philosophy can not find its groundwork in modern thought. It must appeal to the Classic political philosophy. Only in this way can the Modern political philosophy make its self-understanding true.And putting the Classic virtue in practice is the core of Rousseau's political philosophy. In other words, Rousseau tries to restore the Classic virtue's corresponding thing—freedom virtue and cultivate the naive man in society under the background that the Classic polis has already withered away, the idea of polites has become an obsolete symbol.The first chapter illustrates the thought background of Rousseau's political philosophy, which is the theses and differences of the Classic and Modern political philosophy. On this foundation, the author holds four differences of the Classic and Modern political philosophy: science and philosophy, political idealism and realism; ethic virtue and politic virtue, classic natural law and modern natural law. All of the differences indicate their breaking-away in the separation of philosophy and science. The polis degrades himself from the residence of the realization of man's nature into the tool satisfying the individual's desire. The man's classic virtue end as man has been abandoned, nous has been replaced by passion: virtue has been replaced by death terror. In the end, the Modern political philosophy contrives to resolve the problem of politics and morality; contrarily it leads to their separation. And the Modern political philosophy's universal purpose makes itself turn to realism, which means the politics virtue replaces the moral virtue, the individual's desire replaces man's virtue property. The second chapter firstly talks over the integrity of Rousseau's political philosophy and the method of the interpretation. It thinks Rousseau's political philosophy belongs to wholeness, and only through the research on the text's inner logic can it come out. It follows the conflicts between freedom virtue and politicsvirtue and their solution. There stands a rivalry principle in the integrity of Rousseau's political philosophy: the quarrel between the status as man and as polites and the intensity between philosophy and politics. Rousseau's political philosophy longs for meditating the right order of man and the property of man as man, which compels the problem of politics and philosophy to be endowed with Classic virtue spirit on the modern foundation.The third and fourth chapter outspread the concrete contents of Rousseau's political philosophy. The former discusses the natural and social condition, which argues Rousseau's philosophic contemplation of man's history. And the author points out the necessary partition between nature and society in Rousseau's political philosophy. The latter discuses the key issue of Rousseau's political philosophy: the perfect community and freedom education of the individual. Rousseau claims that the political life under the instruction of General Will safeguards the natural man in society for the polity guarantee, and the individual's freedom virtue education can make him achieve himself. Rousseau's freedom education regards the natural man in society as its purpose. And through the education man can exercise his own free will properly, being provided with pity and broad mind, looking after himself with genuine self, being never proud of appropriation, paying attention to spirit enjoyment, looking for noble spirit as life's home.The last chapter illustrates the ultimate end and the persistence of Rousseau's political principle, which is the issue of self-cognition. The author thinks that Rousseau' last work "The Solitary Walker's Reveries" provides us with the picture of philosopher's existence. The core of philosopher's existence is the life of contemplation, and Rousseau can realize his nature and be enclosed with the most heavenliness in contemplation, which is based on the separation between body and spirit and rooted in spirit. And in this case, thought's foundation relies on self-cognition. It is different from the psychological cognition for that it amounts to the existential integrity of the self and the whole.As a thinking attempt, this interpretation is far away from its purpose, and this situation compels the author to go on racking his brains to approach the road of thinking and walk on it.