James David. Rousseau and German Idealism: Freedom, Dependence and Necessity

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013. — 233 p. — ISBN: 9781107037854.The claim that Rousseau's writings influenced the development of Kant's critical philosophy, and German idealism, is not a new one. As correct as the claim may be, it does not amount to a systematic account of Rousseau's place within this philosophical tradition. It also suggests a progression whereby Rousseau's achievements are eventually eclipsed by those of Kant, Fichte and Hegel, especially with respect to the idea of freedom. In this book David James shows that Rousseau presents certain challenges that Kant and the idealists Fichte and Hegel could not fully meet, by making dependence and necessity, as well as freedom, his central concerns, and thereby raises the question of whether freedom in all its forms is genuinely possible in a condition of human interdependence marked by material inequality. His study will be valuable for all those studying Kant, German idealism and the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ideas.Rousseau on freedom, dependence and necessityFreedom and dependence
The transition from dependence on things to dependence on men in the Second Discourse
The spectre of primitive man in Reveries of the Solitary Walker
Will and necessityEvil and perfectibility in Kant’s liberalismKant’s liberal theodicy
Kant on radical evil: making exceptions for oneself
A civil society of intelligent devils
Culture and the ethical community
Normativity and historyImposing order: Rousseau and Fichte on propertyThe political architect
Rousseau on property
Equality and freedom in Fichte’s theory of right
Fichte on property
Imposing order
Interpreting the common will
Political authority in Fichte’s later RechtslehreWill and necessity in Hegel’s Philosophy of RightHegel’s re-conceptualization of the general will
Subjective freedom
The ‘state of necessity’
Economic necessity
The limits of subjective freedom
The existence of the general willActivism and idleness: Fichte’s critique of RousseauFichte’s critique of Rousseau
Selfhood and moral freedom
Rousseau on idleness
Fichte on leisure
Ethical activism and the modern division of labour