On Arendt’s Reading Of Rousseau

This thesis presents and examines Arendt’s reading of Rousseau, and then weighs its validity and compares Arendt’s political thought with that of Rousseau. I try to argue and demonstrate that Arendt’s critique of Rousseau based on her own political thought simplifies and misreads his thought, but is at the same time with great insight. Grounded on the human condition and her common world, Arendt criticizes Rousseau’s view on the natural goodness of man, thinking that Rousseau opposes reason with passion and against the mass society with intimacy, which entails theoretically and practically the elimination of the public space that makes political freedom possible; Also, Rousseau introduces compassion into political theory according to Arendt, conceptualizing his abstract general will basing on the inner experience of compassion and selflessness and so makes the oneness and absoluteness of the sovereignty that serves as the source of political authority possible but theoretically puts an end to differences and distinctions. As I trace throughout Rousseau’s thought as a whole however, it shows that Rousseau’s dichotomy between natural goodness and civilized evils is not to preach a gospel of utopian revolution of going back to nature, but to provide with an absolute standard by which reality is judged. While Rousseau may conceive his concept of the general will with the experience of compassion and set such natural sentiment or passion as criterion for human behavior, he by no means rejects reason, especially classical philosophers’ reason he deems so highly that he regards the political and moral education afforded by great legislators as bridge between that ideal and abstract legitimate polity and the corrupt society. Rousseau builds up an absolute basis for popular sovereignty with the use of political theology, which contrasts strikingly to Arendt’s political phenome-nology and her aestheticized politics, but he does not exclude the possibility of forming the general will by means of civic participation and deliberation; he just emphasizes on the role the wise legislator plays. Nonetheless, Arendt indeed uncovers Rousseau’s propensity for a moralized politics that makes his political thought susceptible for abuse and distortion by the revolutionaries.