Rousseau and the Paradox of Alienation [Hardcover]

In the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sally Howard Campbell finds the bridge between the now-dominant psycho-social conception of alienation and the legal-political conception that prevailed prior to Rousseau. She discusses Rousseaus transformation of the concept of alienation and how it laid much of the groundwork for Marxs later, more explicit discussions of mans alienation. Using Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality, Campbell shows how Rousseau depicts the development of mans awareness of himself as a conscious and moral being, illustrating mans journey from a natural state of self-sufficiency to one of dependence and alienation. Paradoxically, she describes Rousseaus belief that a state of wholeness can only be achieved through a mans total alienation of himself to the community, free from the alienating effects of civil society. She concludes that, like Marx, Rousseau believed that alienation can only be transcended through the merging of the individual and the community.Sally Howard Campbell is associate professor of political science at Concord University in Athens, West Virginia, where she has taught since 2003. She teaches courses in political theory, international relations and constitutional law. She received her Masters degree from Rice University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Houston. She has co-authored articles for The Journal of Conflict Resolution and The American Journal of Political Science and was a contributor to The Constitutionalism of the American States (2008).

Campbell's reading of Rousseau's key texts makes the case that he is the foundational source of the theory of alienation as it is found in subsequent literature, especially in Hegel and then Marx and Marxian-inspired discourse. Campbell's explication shows that Rousseau's psychosocial understanding of man's dilemma in modern civil life transcends the Marxian focus on economic man. The author says Rousseau's theory has been overlooked and the l(