Teacher of Right: Rousseau at the Limits of the State

This chapter problematises a double bind in the political and educational thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. On the one hand, and contrary to the thought of some of his philosophical interpreters, it shows that Rousseau is absolutely assured of the variable qualities of already existing political or social bodies, and that he is sensitive to the relative applicability of political right to them. On the other hand, though, this chapter claims that Rousseau is also absolutely assured that he, and his principles of political and educational right, as laid out especially in the Social Contract and Émile, have something to add to all of these contexts. A body politic can, for Rousseau, vary, but principles of right only vary inasmuch as they must adapt these variable bodies politic. The most problematic feature of this latter position is the implied necessity of imposing the logic of the state from the Social Contract onto existing forms of social organisation, including those that are or might seek to be stateless. Rousseau is, in his own understanding, the teacher of political and educational