| The Calculus of the General Will, presents a new analytical framework for interpreting the unity of Rousseau's philosophical system, including the systematic unity of his notorious paradoxes. This framework is referred to as the "architectonic" of Rousseau's system, and the text makes the case for the utility of the "architectonic" for reading and interpreting Rousseau's political writings.;While Rousseau begins his analysis of the world with particular observations of Nature and mankind in society, the argument is made that his comprehensive system in fact has a metaphysical ground. The system of Rousseau's thought is defined in terms of a metaphysical rupture between identity and difference, the one and the many. The architectonic of Rousseau's system cuts across two bipolar conceptual axes, which can be thought of in terms of a simple xy axis. The positive poles of each axis represent God (Heaven, Providence) and Nature (before the onset of human social history). Both positive poles function as regulative ideals of identity and perfection. The negative poles of each axis represent the Earth, or World (after the onset of human social history) and Society. Both negative poles function as the field of proximate phenomenon characterized by the need for mediation, fallibility, and difference. At the heart of Rousseau's system we find the notion of mathematical limits, which function as benchmarks or baselines, and set and define both possibilities and boundaries.;The logic of the architectonic is imported into Rousseau's political writings, where we find both general principles of political identity and proximate applications to contingent empirical problems of government, paying particular attention to geographic and cultural differentials. Sadly, the only legitimate regime in Rousseau's world is "that which is not," and the only country worth living in is the "country of chimeras" (Julie). But Rousseau leaves us with a critical "NO PLACE" of the imagination between the empirically proximate and the benchmark of perfection that opens up "the field of the [perhaps but not yet] possible...beyond that of the actual" (Paul Ricoeur). |
