This is a thoughtful and ambitious book that seeks to challenge standard schools in the interpretation of Rousseau, while at the same time arguing for the importance of new attention to Rousseau to address questions concerning the defects of liberalism. It is well written and well argued, even if not fully convincing, and deserves the attention of serious Rousseau scholars.
The central thesis of the book is that Rousseau's work can be best understood as a “reflection on the natural perfection of a naturally disharmonious being” (1). What Marks means by this is that the standard of nature that plays such an important role in Rousseau's thought is not that of the original or savage man alone in the state of nature, but rather nature as a goal of human development. In terms of Rousseau's own work, it is seen as the primacy of the model of the educated individual in Emile over that of natural man of the Second Discourse or even the citizen of the Social Contract. Through this, Marks rejects a common understanding of Rousseau as trying to retrieve an experience of unmediated unity in the self and with others.
Marks takes on a three-pronged strategy to fulfill his task. The first is an exegesis of Rousseau's treatment of the theme of nature. In a convincing way, Marks points out the places in Rousseau's texts where he seems to go against the grain of more conventional interpretations—that is, Rousseau as a proponent of a return to a purely original and natural state outside of history and Rousseau as a precursor of Kant, with a vision of a fully denaturalized, moral being. Against the first, Marks shows how Rousseau demonstrates how our original natures drive us to greater corruption, and he acknowledges that the most fulfilled model of human happiness in the Second Part of the Second Discourse is not the original and solitary individual, but an already socialized and somewhat civilized being. Against the second, among other things, Marks shows that in Emile, the life of the citizen is not regarded as the highest form.
The second tack of Marks is a discussion of Rousseau's rhetorical strategy in order to address the question of how and why Rousseau seems to, on the surface, portray another reading. He argues that the praise of the solitary natural man serves as a model to encourage a sense of independence and detachment necessary for the task of molding good citizens in Rousseau's own day, even though Rousseau does not deem that original nature good nor does he advocate a return to that state.
The final chapter of the book is devoted to the consequences of Rousseau's new interpretation for contemporary theory. Taking Charles Taylor's interpretation of Rousseau as axiomatic of a communitarian appropriation, Marks seeks to show where Taylor went wrong in his interpretation, in order to open up new avenues of debate. In particular, by showing how Taylor's ontological message about the necessity of human community for individual development derives from an erroneous reading of Rousseau, Marks strives to open ground for a more individualistic Rousseau.
This work provides a forceful challenge to existing trends of interpretation of Rousseau and for this it merits close attention. Still, there are points where the work is not fully convincing. Marks maintains that his Rousseau remains an anti-liberal, partly due to his ongoing invocation of a need for virtue. But the interpretation of Rousseau offered by Marks comes very close to mainstream liberalism, thereby stripping Rousseau of much of his critical power. Virtue is no longer seen as the practice of unmediated citizenship, but as the individual task to balance a multiplicity of impulses and attraction to a number of goods, all the while maintaining some modicum of peace with others.
In addition, Marks' discussion of Taylor seems to confuse the ontological point of Taylor's phenomenological approach to the question of the development of human identity, i.e., that individual identity is only possible within the context of community, with the normative question of what this implies for the individual's obligations to the community. Indeed, Marks' focus on Emile as a Rousseauian ideal would appear to place a great deal of authority in the hands of educators for the formation and management of character of the “common minds” (70), something that does not square fully with the strong defence of individuality and independence that he offers in his discussion contra Taylor.
I would recommend this book to students and scholars of Rousseau seeking a good synopsis of existing interpretations and a thoughtful challenge to them.
