British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
14TH BRITISH ACADEMY POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP SYMPOSIUM
Abstract
Was Rousseau Truly a Classical Republican? The Problem of Sophie’s Vanity in Emile (1762)
Dr Carolina Armenteros
Historically, republicanism has been categorised into two, antithetical, classical and commercial varieties. Classical republicans envisioned a political community forged by the virtue of its devoted citizens. Commercial republicans, by contrast, emphasized the need to moderate virtue and render it compatible with private interests—especially those interests pertaining to commerce. On this spectrum, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) has been conventionally portrayed as the last firebrand of classical republicanism. For him, virtue was all that mattered, and commerce and the moral vices traditionally associated with it were to be exiled from the ideal republic. So determined, indeed, was Rousseau to render virtue paramount, that he attacked even the arts in which he himself excelled so brilliantly as commerce’s primary allies in the creation of corruption.
Yet a careful reading of Rousseau’s vision of the ideal woman, Sophie, in Book V of his educational treatise, Emile, suggests a very different interpretation. For Sophie’s virtues as a wife and mother derive precisely - and paradoxically - from her fundamentally vanitous, and - according to Rousseau’s own theory - vitiated moral nature. This paper describes Sophie’s until now neglected vanity, and explores its consequences for Rousseau’s political and moral thought. It dwells, in particular, on the role that Sophie plays in the formation of her fiancé Emile’s emotions and moral personality; on her function as a mediator between public and private worlds; and on the implications that this has for Rousseau’s often vindicated status as a political absolutist.
Dr Carolina Armenteros is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in History at the University of Cambridge. Her major current project investigates the intersection between educational and republican thought in France during the Enlightenment and Revolution, focusing especially on Rousseau's philosophy and its eighteenth-century interpretations.