Legislators as musicians. Rousseau’s melodious foundation of democratic republicanism and his Essai sur l’origine des langues

7/28/2019 Legislators as musicians. Rousseau’s melodious foundation of democratic republicanism and his Essai sur l’origine des langues

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/legislators-as-musicians-rousseaus-melodious-foundation-of-democratic-republicanism 1/34

1

Legislators as musicians. Rousseau’s melodious foundation of democraticrepublicanism and his Essai sur l’origine des langues.

Alessandro Arienzo

[this paper is an early draft;not to be quoted without the permission of the author]

Introduction

Being persuaded of the difficulties of establishing the ways in which languages originated out

of men’s natural faculties, Jean Jacques Rousseau wondered whether: “a été le plus

nécessaire, de la Société déjà liée, a l’institution des Langues déjà inventées, a l’etablissement

de la Société ” (DI:151). This was not a chicken-egg game for bored aristocrats or would-be

philosophers. During the Eighteenth century philosophical debate the themes of the origin of

civility and language were, in fact, key issues for all those who aimed at separating the

spheres of natural sciences and humanist culture, as: “l’arbitraire du langage joue le rôle de

principe de démarcation” (Auroux, 2007:33).

In his Discourse on Inequality Rousseau’s approach to the theme of the origin of

language was hypothetical and conjectural. Language is described as the product of

perfectibility and pity, and its first beginnings are placed in the mutual relation between the

child and his mother. Later, in the Essay on the origin of languages Rousseau offered a closer

analysis of the historical process by which languages – rather than language – were instituted,

and he described gestures and in-articulated sounds as the first forms of communication. To

communication by gestures and sounds followed the uses of intonations and melodies that

enriched the primitive forms of spoken communication. It will be only very late that mankind

come to be able to give conventional expressions to ideas and feelings using words and

sentences. These passages from early forms of communication to conventional spoken



2

language are deemed by Rousseau to be the outcomes of moral passions and perfectibility. In

this sense, Rousseau is convinced that language can only be born out of human cooperation

and through men detachment from their original condition of selfishness.

Language and society are, therefore, the products of a moral spin that lead individuals

toward the fulfilment of their capacities. But once activated, this process of self-development

bears with it the progressive corruption of men natural condition of autonomy. On the one

side, perfectibility drives men to escape the uncertain condition of isolation that characterize

their “pur état de Nature” (DI:147) by pushing them toward the plain development of their

natural capacities. On the other side, sociability produces divisions, corruption and

degradation. Thus, when seen by this angle, contemporary societies do not represent a stage

of civility and politeness, but an age of tyranny, hypocrisy and separations:

- in language, where conventional forms of communication express the progressive

detachment from primitive sensations through a process of linguistic rationalization

that separates different languages, different cultures;

- in music, where the supremacy of harmony over melody and tuning implies the loss of

an original melodic unity between sounds and words that Rousseau describes as

unity of melody;

- in politics, where political representation appears as a device for separating men from

others, and of every man from the community;

Underlying all these, there is a fundamental separation that any man prove with himself,

being an effect of social affectation, traditional education and promoted by the complex

dynamics of recognition/ambition. The paths of sociality, the necessities to “appear” to others

rather being with the others, the need to be recognized as having a place in a social rank,

separate men from their immediacy.



3

Rousseau himself, during all his life, struggled to recover this transparency to himself

and an immediacy that is a requisite for that rich singularity upon which is only possible to

establish a melodious and harmonic order. This struggle will not end but in his death, and is

significant that Rousseau will recur to the tools of biography and confession in his search for

self-recognition and fulfilment. Because of his aversion of representation, it is through

narration that Rousseau searched to recover his singularity and his true nature. We will not

shed further light on these aspects of Rousseau’s intellectual and human search, but his

struggle for self-recognition has a political significance for he is convinced that at the core of

all political and social divisions there is “representation”. By following Starobinki magisterial

lecture (Starobinski, 1971), we are convinced that Rousseau attempt to recover immediacy

and transparency in a search of his singularity is the linking thread of his life, art and politics.

When placed in the narrower frame of a critique of theories of representation,

Rousseau’s philosophy stands within a neo-classical approach to language and music that,

during the Eighteenth century, uttered a strong critique of representation in the fields of

knowledge, arts and politics (Dugan and Strong, 2001; Hudson, 2005; Starobinsky, 1971). By

focusing on the Essay on the origin of languages, I will discuss Rousseau’s belief that music,

education and politics, can enhance man’s moral freedom through the establishment of a

“melodic” language of wisdom, capable of healing the wounds of moral corruption and social

divisions. Language is conventional and its conventionality is the result of a development in

communication that was driven by human search for perfectibility and pity; both these imply

mutual recognition and cooperation as well as conflicts and divisions. In this sense,

Rousseau’s theory on language and music is a reflection on the “moral effects” of melody

which has relevant implication for his politics (Dobels, 1986). In fact, the analysis of the

origin of languages reveals the principles upon which political societies are instituted and



4

develop their identities. To clarify this point, I will focus on the legislator as that figure that,

through persuasion and “sound” discourses, not only proposes laws, but establishes moeurs

and shared social meanings in the very fist moment of the joining together of men in a

political community. Languages were then made of songs and tunes, and those ancient laws

had the expressive force of poetry and melodies. The decisive role of persuasion explains why

legislators should above all preserve the musical force belonging to a wise political discourse.

Man is today corrupted, but in the melody belonging to a wise discourse, or in very special

moments like in the dance in Saint-Gervaise, it is possible to hear resonating the early

strength of ancient and less corrupted communities.

Certainly, a just and legitimate political community can only be established by

individuals, but it is only by the art of few wise people that the promises of freedom and

justice implied in the social contract can be realized. On the converse, it is the purpose of

wisdom, and the true aim of politics, to make of a disperse multitude of men a “People”, and a

community of citizens. This seems to lead to an apparent paradox in Rousseau’s theory: on

the one side, it is the purpose of a legislator, and of the State, to promote the moral

transformation of individuals through law, civism and education; on the other side, it is only

from those individuals that a just and legitimate state can be established through a moral pact.

And this requires that individuals recognise themselves as moral agents, acting and choosing

in accordance with the common interest. As we noted above, in the Emilio and in the

Confessions there are indications for a process of moral and psychological growth based on

education and on a effort of self-discovery that appear to be the strongest foundations for an

ordered society. But this growth implies the changing of men inner nature; an almost

impossible task, that requires time and is dependent upon the autonomous paths of

perfectibility. In this sense, Rousseau has to balance self-education and state government in



5

order to draw the lines for making individuals a people upon which to establish a legitimate

sovereign political order.

Within the limits of this short contribution, I will discuss the above mentioned paradox

by focusing on a different line of reasoning in Rousseau’s thought. Legislators and wise

politicians, in fact, should rely on their capacity to provide people with good laws and

customs, convincing them to join the political society. And on that relies Rousseau’s

republicanism. But legislators and politicians should also yield on “reason of state”, as a

complex science of politics, in order to set up the condition by which a political community

can promote political equality and good government. Indeed, Rousseau does not intend raison

d’état as a derogatory or cunning politics, but as the knowledge of all the rules concerned

with the government of a population through policy, administration, economy. By joining

virtue with reason of state, Rousseau reveals the necessity to sustain his republicanism, and

his proposal for a democratic political order, with a governance that strengthen the capacities

for the self-government of people and individuals. If this holds true, while education and self-

recognizance through narration are the two pillars for a rediscovery of human singularity

bridging the gap between individuality and sociality, in Rousseau’s political philosophy it is

reason of state that closes the circle between politics and morality, between the melodious

language of the legislator and the harmony implied in a well ordered society.

The Essai Sur l’origine des langues and the debate on melody

Rousseau’s Essay on the origin of languages was probably written between 1758 and 1761

and published posthumous in 1781 (M. Duchet and M. Launay, 1967; Gentile, 1984; Bora,

1989; Starobinsky, 1995). The essay collects an unpublished fragment of his Discours sur



6

l’inégalité – a fragment that for its length and topic Rousseau depicted as “trop long et hors de

place” (PP: 373) – and the original draft of a response to the musician Jean Philippe Rameau

dated 1755, later published with the title L’Origine de la mélodie ou réponse aux erreurs sur

la Musique.

In hi earlier Discourse Rousseau posed the problem of the “origins of language”, in the

following Essay he discusses at greater length the theme of the “origin of languages” and the

role played in communication by melody and imitation. The relevant differences between the

two texts on men’s state of nature and on “pity” have led to a long debate (Derrida, 1967;

Grange, 1967; Starobinski, 1961 and 1995) questioning the coherence of his historical picture

of mankind evolution. Jean Starobinski noted that Rousseau in his Discourse aimed at

showing the contingency of language, and the relative and derivative character of everything

that originated out of its usage, rather than formulate a coherent theory concerning the origins

of languages (DI, 1964).

In the Essay Rousseau explores the phases of development of mankind from its early

stages to his age: a state of civility in which different political societies are divided by

languages and cultures and marked by tyranny and corruption. In this work a central place is

given to music and musical imitation; in fact the complete title is Essai sur l’Origine des

Langues où il est parlé de la mélodie et de l’imitation musicale. On the one side, this is

justified by the place of this text in his critical discussion of Jean Philippe Rameau’s musical

theory; on the other side, it proves how his theory of music was not separated from his

philosophical and political theory. Rousseau himself was, in fact, a musician, and well before

writing his two discourses he held a significant place in French and European debate on

musical theory. In 1748 he was asked by Diderot to write several articles on music for the

Encyclopedia and a great resonance had his Lettre sur la musique francoise, appeared in 1753



7

as a contribution to the so called “Quarrell of the Bouffons” (Scott, 1998; Thomas:1995;

Wokler: 1987). Rameau believed that pleasure and balance in music were the result of

harmonic overtones and vibrations and of their continuous resonance on what he called corps

sonore. Harmony was the expression of a geometry of sensations and vibrations that he based

on a sensist anthropology. The art of a musical composer was the knowledge and the ability to

mould tunes and melodies by equilibrating harmonies, tones and accents through a rational

evaluation of the effects of sounds on bodies. On the contrary, Rousseau opposed to Rameau

and his upholding the learned and polite French style, the so-called “Italian form”: a style of

composition that he thought to be more popular and almost “universal”, as it perfectly joined

words and music realizing the principle of the “unity of melody” (LF: 289). Despite the fact

that both music and paintings implied the harmonious composition of parts, i.e. colours and

sounds, Rousseau believed that as painting was not merely the art of combining colours, so

music was not simply the expression of an harmonious choice of notes. It was rather imitation

that made of paintings and music true arts as “Or qu’est-ce qui fait de la peinture un art

d’imitation? C’est le dessein. Qu’est-ce qui de la musique en fait un autre? C’est la mélodie”

(EOL: 414).

Rousseau, in fact, conceived music as an evocative practice of rediscovery and

actualization of melodies and tunes echoing from the beginning of mankind. He thought that

men started to communicate to each other through gesture and vocalizations, and was also

persuaded that while the capacity to communicate was rooted in human nature, the forms and

the means of communicating were historical and conventional. In this sense, the physicality of

corps sonore – the physical nature of sound pointed out by Rameau – could not account for

the complexity of the process of signification implied in music, nor for the birth of different

languages and cultures: “Les sons dans la mélodie n’agissent pas seulement sur nous comme



8

sons, mais comme signes de nos affections, de nos sentimens; c’est ainsi qu’ils excitent en

nous les mouvemens qu’ils expriment et dont nous y reconnoissons l’image” (EOL: 417). In

this sense, “Les plus beaux accords ainsi que les plus belles couleurs peuvent porter au sens

une impression agréable et rien de plus”. (Ex: 358). On the contrary, the accents of the voice

are such to “passent jusqu’à l’ame” (Ex: 358), being the natural expression of the passions. It

is thus because of this connection to passions that it is music to enrich oratorical, eloquent and

imitative. For the very same reason, it is by passions and musicality that language may depict

objects to the imagination, and convey feelings to the heart. The physical side of music

accounts therefore to very little, and harmony “ne passe pas au delà” (Ex: 358) as no physical

phenomena can justify the psychological and moral effect of sounds which are the product of

men’s cultural dimension shaped by moral passions and perfectibility. According to John

Scott, Rousseau intended music as “a semantic system, a language of the passions

communicated through the inflections of melody” (Scott, 1998:293). Therefore, the

development of languages through reason and philosophy lead to weaken the passions upon

which original vocal sounds were based. And this happened in the very same way in which

harmony, its calculations and geometry, alienated sounds from feelings.

Sounds, gestures, ideas

Despite the devastating effects of rationalization, a trace of the original, “natural”, sense of

passionate communication is still present in imitative music, keeping thus alive the original

tenderness and immediacy of mankind. And it is through melody that these original tracts can

be recovered to languages and politics. Rousseau’s theory is, in fact, a theory of the “moral

effects” of melody, and it is on this moral and melodic quality that politics can subsist. In the



9

Essay Rousseau referred to contemporary studies in philosophy, natural sciences and

archaeology in order to draw a convincing picture of the way in which languages were born

out of sounds and gestures. A relevant influence was that of Condillac, whose researches, he

wrote, “toutes confirment pleinement mon sentiment, et qui, peut-être, m’en ont donné la

prémiére idée” despite the fact that “qu’il a supposé ce que je mets en question, savoir une

sorte de société déjà établie entre les inventeurs du langage ” (DI: 146). Rousseau followed

the abbé ‘s Essai sur l’origine des connoissances (1746) assuming that spoken language must

have arisen out of a more primitive language of gesture. But while Condillac believed that

established signs were rooted on human need, and should be intended as expressing a

progressive evolution from poetry to science, Rousseau thought that that the process by which

men instituted conventional signs was not a linear one, and was far more uncertain. No

society could, in fact, be traced before the beginning of conventional communication and no

language could develop before the emergence of some sort of sociability. Once established

earlier forms of communication, Rousseau described the subsequent passages from sounds

and gestures to speech and writing, then from ealy melodic tongues to dispassionate and

rational languages. During these processes languages lost their original force despite their

gaining clarity and accuracy, and “que plus on s’attache à perfectionner la grammaire et la

logique plus on accélére ce progrès” (EOL: 392). In this sense, Rousseau took a side in

contemporary debate on the ancients opposed to the moderns by affirming the superiority of

the ancients, for they were able to speak in vocal and melodic languages, modulated by

passionate tones, that trully touched the heart and the soul of the listeners. As he clarified,

they sung more than merely use articulated words, and “les prémiéres langues furent

chantantes et passionnés avant d’être simples et méthodiques” (EOL: 381).



10

If early discourses were songs and tunes, then ancient laws were poetry and songs.

Poetry was invented before prose, as passions “spoke” before reason did. Thus, Rousseau

opposed the idea that we should trace culture and knowledge back in senses and sensations;

rather, he was persuaded that physical sensations could not determine any difference between

cultures and languages. Knowledge starts with senses, but all the process of signification is

characterized by indeterminacy and accidentality, being conventional and constantly

disruptive. While pursuing a naturalistic approach to the study knowledge and anthropology,

Rousseau rejected any form of sensist or mechanicist reductionism: that man is modified by

senses cannot be questioned, but: “nous donnons trop et trop peu d’empire aux sensations;

nous ne voyons pas comme sensations mais comme signes ou images, et que leurs effets

moraux ont aussi des causes morales” (EOL: 412).

In the Discourse Condillac is only mentioned, and a more detailed discussion of his

theory is in the Essay. In this work Rousseau argued that language did not spring out of

individual needs, but from moral passions: “L’effet naturel des prémiers besoins fut d’écarter

les hommes et non de les rapprocher. […] l’origine des langues n’est point düe aux prémiers

besoins des hommes […]. D’où peut donc venir cette origine? Des besoins moraux, des

passions” (EOL: 380). In the Discourse Rousseau focused on the “mute” man in the state of

nature, on families and early societies, pointing out all the historical and theoretical

difficulties concerned with the study of the birth of languages. In the Essay he offered a more

accurate account of early stages of mankind, in order to describe the genesis of established

signs and to outline the different phases of their development from their first institutions,

through the golden (classic) age, up to contemporary corrupted societies. In the Discourse the

cry of the children is deemed to be the first form of human communication, a form that moves

the passions and chiefly among them pity. The very origin of communication and language in



11

the Essay is instead placed in gesture and unarticulated sounds, and is joined to a process of

mutual recognition of men as sentient beings and similar. In their origins men used

movements and the sound of their voice to communicate: thus gestures and shouts were the

primitive forms of this communication. Rousseau was persuaded that gesture is such a very

complex form of communication that: “Nous aurions pû établir des sociétés peu différentes de

ce qu’elles sont aujourdui, ou qui même auroient marché mieux à leur but” (EOL: 380). He

was therefore convinced that gesture is a more direct form of communication than sounds or

speech, as it has a direct relation to men’s need: “si nous n’avions jamais eu que des besoins

physiques, nous aurions fort bien pû ne parler jamais, et nous entendre parfaitement par la

seule langue du geste” (EOL: 378). The efficacy of gesture is thus given by its immediate

relation to the object as “l’objet offert avant de parler ébranle l’imagination, excite la

curiosité, tient l’esprit en suspens et dans l’attente de ce qu’on va dire” (EOL: 376).

Movements and gesture have a stronger capacity to develop direct and non verbal forms of

communicating men’s inner motions, their dispositions. In this sense, gesture easily expresses

the “inquetude naturelle” (EOL: 376) of men.

The birth of vocal language, therefore, is not primarily based on needs, but it rests on a

necessity to express moral passions in which Rousseau also place the superiority of this form

of communication on gesture. The first invention of speech was therefore due to passions. The

capacity of speech to keep men united through persuasion is based on the ability to raise and

move passions by intertwining words and images, sounds and tunes. In this sense, any

discourse, any system of words and sentences, despite its being based on rationality and

convention, can retain some sort of “musicality” by accents and intonations. That is why a

discourse can raise men’s passions and express feelings better than any other means: “Mais

lorsqu’il est question d’émouvoir le coeur et d’enflammer les passions, c’est toute autre



12

chose. L’impression successive du discours, qui frappe à coups redoublés, vous donne bien

une autre émotion que la présence de l’objet même, où d’un coup d’oeil vous avez tout vëû”

(EOL: 377). Rousseau explained the importance of spoken language with the example of the

sensations raised by a suffering man. As long as we merely see him suffering, we can feel

close but we will never feel touched unless he starts telling us about his feelings and pains.

Indeed, passions have their own gestures, “mais elles ont aussi leurs accens, et ces accens qui

nous font tressaillir, ces accens auxquels on ne peut dérober son organe, penétrent par lui

jusqu’au fond du coeur, y portent malgré nous les mouvemens qui les arrachent, et nous font

sentir ce que nous entendons” (EOL: 378). This example helps us to clarify how the

communicative form of the discourse is the most capable to express pity, and helps us

understanding the extent to which pity grounds recognition, and recognition stays as a pre-

requisite for any form of communication.

Rousseau was also persuaded that the conventional nature of language is not only

related to the forms, instruments and modalities of communicating, but is connected to

signification itself. In the Discourse he clarified how it was not from language that emerged

the faculty of thinking, but it is from thinking that men produce their languages: “car si les

Hommes ont eu besoin de la parole pur apprendre à penser, ils ont eu bien plus besoin encore

de savoir penser pour trouver l’art de la parole” (DI, p.147). Thus, it is from very simple ideas

– generated by a primitive process of self-recognizance – that men develop their first words

through a process of denomination. General and more complex ideas only derive from a

subsequent evolution of the intellect that is promoted by the use of early forms of language

and communication:



13

“Il faut donc énoncer des propositions, il faut donc paler pour avoir des idée

générales, car sitôt que l’immagination s’arrête, l’esprit ne marche plus qu’à l’aide

des discours. Si donc les premiere Inventeurs n’ont pu donner des noms qu’aux

idées qu’ils avoient déjà, il s’ensuit que les premiers substantifs n’ont pu jamais

être que noms propres” (DI, p.150).

This is very much what was already expressed by Condillac, and is the also the result of

Locke’s influence on French and European philosophical debate. In fact, the Essay on Human

Understanding was a fundamental work for theorist of language and literature of the

following century, in France as in the whole of Europe. In his Essay ‘Of Words’ in Book 3 the

English philosopher affirmed that words were merely arbitrary signs of ideas: “[words]

signify only Men’s peculiar Ideas, and that by a perfectly arbitrary Imposition” (1690, II:73)

and authors such as Vico, Condillac and Rousseau himself interpreted this passage as

signifying that words were much more than outward signs: words could shape ideas as they

give an organized form to thoughts (Hudson, 2005: 335). This processes, at least for

Rousseau, is certainly not the mere result of any feature of our physical nature as “l’invention

de l’art de communiquer nos idées dépend moins des organes qui nous servent à cette

communication que d’une faculté propre à l’homme, qui lui fait employer ses organes à cet

usage,” (EOL: 379).

In describing the establishing of conventional signs, a faculty that is proper of men,

Rousseau is also influences by William Warburton who, in his Essai sur les hiéroglyphs des

Égiptiens (1744), studied the figurative origin and evolution of hieroglyphics. He held the

thesis that the first writings were simple pictures used, in the centuries to follow, as tropes in

order to represent abstract and conceptual figures and ideas. Rousseau too believed that the



14

first expressions used by human beings were “tropes”. Language was therefore figurative

before it was literal: “On nous fait du language des prémiers hommes des langues de

Geométres, et nous voyons que ce furent des langues de Poëtes” (EOL: 380). Figurative

language was therefore the first form of language established by man in society, and early

speech had the form of poetry because passion suggested images and illusions, then images

were substituted by metaphors, and finally reason “n’en employa les expressions que dans les

mêmes passions qui l’avoient produite” (EOL: 382). Language is the product of passions

expressing a “moral” tension of men toward the others, and it represents a sort of matrix in

which the results of complex intellectual operations that are guided by our search for

perfectibility come to be framed. Words are arbitrary sign, and those signs form a language

through which our early and very limited ideas are enriched, further developes and widened

according to the mutations of events.

On the establishing of societies and languages

“Sitot qu’un homme fut reconnu par un autre pour un Etre sentant, pensant et semblable à lui,

le désir ou le besoin de lui communiquer ses sentimens et ses pensées lui en fit chercher les

moyens” (EOL: 375). Scholars have often focused on the relevance of the dynamics of

recognition in the Discourse on inequality and in the Essay (Honneth, 1996; Carnevali, 2004).

The latter takes as given what was already discussed in the former : namely pity and

perfectibility, the two factors that moves men to exit the “pure state of nature” to establish

families, then complex societies. If we regard the mute man of the Discourse as an

hypothetical grade zero of mankind, the mutual recognition among men must necessarily be

the first step of sociality. In order to express how come the homme natural developed in a



15

social being, Rousseau had to establish the principle that “the consciousness of fellow

humanity requires a sympathetic recognition of shared passions-compassions” (Scott,

1998:301). This way, man loses his primitive condition of peace and innocence. Indeed, no

teleological process pre-determine this transformation, as only historical and anthropological

reasons led mankind to leave that condition of individual independence and selfishness. The

detachment from an original condition of pure naturality is a paradoxical result of a search for

perfectibility that move men toward the development of natural capacities that would

otherwise have remained silent and inactive. In fact: “cette parfait indépendence et cette

liberté sans régle, fut-elle même démeurée jointe à l’antique innocence, auroit en toujours un

vice essentielle, et nuisible au proprés de nos plus excellents facultés, savoir le défaut de cette

liaison des parties qui constitue le tout” (MG, 283). Without that faculty, the earth would be

inhabited by solitary men, unable to communicate to each other and to fulfil their capabilities.

Perfectibility is therefore a strenuous and natural search for a full development of human

capacities that leads us to civility while produces divisions and conflicts. It is a “faculté qui, à

l’aide des circonstances, développe successivement toutes les autres, et réside parmi nour tant

dans l’espéce que dans l’individu” (DI:142). It drives men, both individually and collectively,

to face their needs and passions and to transform themselves in a tension toward self-

perfection as well as egoism, toward amour -de-soi as well as of amour-propre.

While perfectibility is a faculty that make men “in movement”, pity is a virtue “qui,

ayant été donné à l’homme pour adoucir, en certaines circonstances, la férocité de son ampur

propre, ou le désir de se conserver avant la naissance de cet amour […] vertue d’autant plus

universelle et d’autant plus utile à l’homme, qu’elle précede en lui l’usage de toute réflexion”

(DI:154). Although Rousseau’s argument in the Essay may seem to differ with the Discourse,

critics are now largely convinced there is no essential contradiction between the two works.



16

Rousseau’s argument, in fact, is not that pity is immediately active in the pure state of nature,

but rather that it operate as a “principle” of natural right. This principle does not presupposes

natural sociability, but the activities of men’s natural faculties and, among them, the most

relevant is that of imagination, which is the faculty that makes possibile to live other’s

sufferings and pains (Derathé, 1950). In fact, although natural, pity would remain eternally

inactive without the role of imagination, which is the faculty that makes us able to identify

with another person. The movement of recognition of the other is always possible, provided

that any man imagines himself as “other” to the other, through a reflexive movement of

thinking. This process is not obvious or definitively acquired and the imitative capacity of

languages play a decisive role.

Spoken languages are, in fact, parts of a continuous and natural effort toward mutual

recognition. Languages, as we already mentioned, are not merely concerned with

communicating needs as their true aims are to share passions and feelings, establishing mutual

relations and move men toward a common society. It is now possible to index few significant

characteristics of languages, as they are expressed by Rousseau. The first of them is that while

speech is specifically human, it is also true that this capacity only develops “historically”,

and, in a certain sense, by accident. Languages are moreover “catastrophic”, as their birth is

made possible by natural catastrophes or dramatic accidents that obliged men to live together

in a search for mutual help. Moreover, early spoken languages were passionate and

metaphoric and it will be only through a long lasting process of socialization that languages

will develop stable inter-subjective meanings. Lastly, the conventional nature on languages

rest, above all, on the necessity to “persuade individuals in cooperative endeavours” (Dobels,

1986:645).



17

Thus, the theme of the origin of languages cannot be severed from those of sociability

and recognition. In this sense, languages follow the same path of transformation and

degradation that Rousseau attributed in the Discourse to mankind. He draws an hypothetical

history of mankind in which the point zero of humanity is what he called the homme

naturelle, a man who is substantially independent from nature and from others. This man has

no necessity to develop arts or crafts in order to survive, and the only need he has of another

human being is for sexual reproduction. In a sense, this man is not properly free as his

condition is not much the product of his will but the result of an immediacy of relations with

the things and beings surrounding him. To him does not belong language, despite the fact that

he has the faculty to communicate by inarticulate sounds and confused gestures. It is only

when perfectibility and pity brought men to join together, giving birth to early forms societies,

that spoken languages could arose. Later come the development of written forms of

communication that added a different line of transformation of mankind, as different stages of

society developed and expressed in this development different form of writing: “La peinture

des objects convenient aux peuples sauvages; les signes des mots et des propositions aux

peuples barbares, et l’alphabet aux peuples policés” (EOL: 385). In early primitive societies

the single was no longer fully independent and inequality started to grow, nonetheless a

substantial condition of freedom kept characterizing that stage of mankind. But when the

stronger and the richer – because of the institution of property and of the division of labours –

firmly established their rule, this condition of a relative balance among men was definitively

broken and, passed the golden age of classical antiquity, mankind degraded toward

affectation, falsity and domination. In this sense, societal division is neither natural nor

original, but was the paradoxical, and in a way unavoidable, result of sociality and

perfectibility.



18

In all the phases of human history, perfectibility move mankind toward new acquisitions

and gains at the prices of a progressive loss of autonomy and of growth of conflicts. To

contemporary condition of violence and subordination of the many to the few, it is only

possible to put an end with the establishment of a common power that guarantees freedom,

equality and self-government. As we are now going to discuss, it is up to politics to realize a

sort of “political unity of melody” tu(r)ned as customs, institutions and laws.

On representation and democratic self-government

Rousseau philosophical theory was a part of a wider movement in early Eighteenth century in

which the theme of musical language stood as a crucial element of neo-classical theories of

representation (Thomas, 1995:7). Within that movement, music was “the triggering

mechanism of representation itself – the origin of the origin of culture, as it were” implying

“forms of representation which shatter the classical notion of a direct, one-to-one

correspondence between sign and meaning” (Thomas, 1995:10). We have already noticed the

extent to which music was connected by Rousseau to language and discourse, and how in his

view a sound discourse could play a decisive role in persuading and moving passions. Thus,

the supporting of melody against harmony had a clear political relevance, as it paralleled the

opposition between political representation on the one side, and democratic self-government

on the other. Music, as well as politics, is based on signs, nature and culture, history. Being

any sign the arbitrary, often conventional, expression of ideas connected to outward objects,

there is always a representative process involved in signification, music and language:

“L’analyse de la pensée de fait par la parole, et l’analyse de la parole par l’écriture; la parole

represente la pensée par des signes conventionnels, et l’écriture représente de même la parole;



19

ainsi l’art d’écrire n’est que une réprésentation mediate de la pensée, au moins quant aux

langues vocales, les seules qui soient usage parmi nous” (FP:1249). The essence of language

is thus representation: in spoken language there is a first representative process that involves

ideas and words, then a second one that concerns the process by which we represents the

spoken words with written signs. In both cases, representation is conventional and expresses a

slow degradation of the immediate evidence of things through rationalization and substitution.

This explains why in the Emilio Rousseau alerts us to never substitute: “le signe à la chose

que quand il vous est impossibile de la montree. Car le signe absorbe l’attention de l’enfant, et

lui fait oublier la chose réprésentée (Em:434). Indeed, while communicating and thinking are

two different faculties, as far as words are not ideas and sentences are not merely chains of

ideas, these faculties are strongly intertwined, and the degradation of one implies the

degradation of the other.

The critique of representation in knowledge and learning also clarifies Rousseau’s

critical assessment of theatrical imitation and stage performances. On this theme, the most

relevant writing is probably the short essay De l’imitation théatrale, a collection of notes on

the books III and X of Plato’s Republic and of passages taken from Gorgias and the Laws

(Dugan T. and Strong T.B., 2001). In these notes Rousseau focused on the themes of imitation

and the perils of imitative representation already discussed in his the Letter to D’Alambert,

where he observed how theater could move the emotions through a process of representation

in which, due to the separation between the stage and the spectators, moral passions only have

a weak resonance in the soul of people. When connected to public performances, imitation

gets people used to passivity and surrogates of reality. In a often quoted passage of the Letter ,

Rousseau wonder “Qu’est que le talent du comedien? L’art de se contrefaire, de revertir un

autre caractére que le sien, de paroitre différent de ce que qu’on est, de se passionner de sang-



20

froid, de dire autre chose que ce qu’on pense aussi naturellement que si l’on le pensoit

réellement, et d’oublier enfin sa proper place à force de prendre celle d’autrui” (LD:72-73).

This passage is exemplary, and must be read along Rousseau’s critique of affectation and the

false passions of contemporary societies, where relations among men are characterized by

artificiality, subordination and separation. While contemporary politics, culture and customs

separate men from each other, and separate men with themselves, imitative music gives the

possibility to recover a much more direct and immediate form of communication and

recognition. Theatrical imitation being representational, is mere fiction, while musical

imitation is the expression of unity and of melody.

Along this line of thought, when focusing on politics, Rousseau opposes political

representation to the musicality expressed by the wise discourses of ancient legislators. Numa,

Licurgus, Moses were key figures in seventeenth and eighteen century republicanism and

much of contemporary scholarship focuses on Rousseau’s political theory by stressing its

distinctive and peculiar mixture of republicanism, natural right theory and sovereignty. This

complexity is the reason that moved John Pocock to describe Rousseau as the “Machiavelli of

the Eighteenth century” (Pocock, 1975:504). Indeed, his major project was the composition of

an ample work on politics that he would have titled Political Institutions that was never

accomplished. Nonetheless, the two discourses, the Social Contract, the Emilio, and his

writings on Corsica and Poland do represent a throughout effort of reforming politics and

political institutions by questioning their very fundamental principles. His reflections on

music, as well as the “hypothetical history of mankind” underlying almost all his works, must

be considered relevant aspects of this effort. In this sense, Victor Gourevitch clearly stressed

how the central themes in Rousseau’s republicanism were customs and laws, whereas moeurs

regulate attitudes and dispositions and laws individual and collective conducts (Gourevitch,



21

1997). As we will soon discuss, regulating moeurs is what a legislator must do, through

rhetoric and persuasion. And is through the melodious language of political wisdom, rather

than with the imperious command of a ruler, that a political community can be created and

preserved.

The political relevance of Rousseau on music, language and harmony can easily be

traced in a number of points of his works; nonetheless, it could be enough for the purposes of

this contribution to focus on the chapters on the legislator and on sovereignty as they appear

in the Social Contract and in his works on Poland and Corsica. Being the Social Contract the

work in which Rousseau theoretical approach and his republicanism are better expressed, and

those on Poland and Corsica the writings where the governmental side of his democratic

republicanism can be better traced. Indeed, popular and legislative sovereignty is a

fundamental aspect in Rousseau’s political theory, but legislative sovereignty rests on the

early establishment of a political community that necessitate of a wise beginning. This is the

job of legislators who have to shape and mould a multiplicity of individuals in a people, in a

political comm/Unity. Nonetheless, behind the people there always is a population, a

multitude of individuals and a plurality of groups that join together in a society but do not

represent in their immediacy a political unity. The transformation of this multitude in “the

People” is a hard and exceptional matter, that requires political wisdom, accurate government

and a throughout governance of groups and individuals. Rousseau’s writings on Poland and

Corsica, among all his political works, offer us the traces of a political investigation that

supports sovereignty and social contract but focuses on administration, economy and the

governance of population.

The chapter on the legislator in the in certainly among the most puzzling and

fascinating of the Social Contract . Numa, Licurgus, Moses are all figures that give an answer



22

to necessity that a republic in its beginning should be established on wise, stable and virtuous

principles. In this sense, wise founders of republics and lawgivers must give orders and

institutions, but they must also be political educators. Education, as a political tool, is a

complex moral economy based on the rediscovery of the immediacy of the human nature and

of individuality. In the very beginning of this chapter Rousseau warns the reader that the

legislator, if it ever existed, must have surely been a “superior intellect”, such to understand

men as they really are, understanding their passions without being affected by any. Thus, a

man completely devoted to the happiness and well-being of the people, whose image – which

is clearly drafted on a stoic theme – is that of a semi-gods, a superior moral being. Moreover,

a figure that understands and speaks the same language of the people he wants to shape and

gives form. It has often been noted that Rousseau assumes the republican principle that best

way to ensure obedience to law is to dispose citizens to praise and honour them, rather than

relying on force and coercion. But in his Letter to d’Alambert , having posed the question “Par

où le gouvernement peut il donc avoir prise sur les moeur? ”, Rousseau significantly changed

this republican maxim by proposing the new idea of public opinion: “par l’opinion publique”

he answered (LD:61). This changing has a massive politically relevance for public opinion is

not subject to the imposing powers of kings and magistrates. Public opinion must be

cherished, can be educated but cannot be imposed. Thus: “Si le gouvernement peut beaucoup

sue les moeurs, c’est seulement par son institution primitive” (DL:68). And to do so, it is

necessary to persuade rather than convince of the necessity and righteousness of laws and

customs. People, as well as public opinion, has a conservative nature in a sense that it resists

changing and innovations; once it has assumed a determined character, it is almost impossible

to have it radically transformed. As far as law has an immediate sanctioning power and an

authority that can last for a long time, it can establish, enforce and promote behaviours and



23

customs. In this sense, the knowledge of their force and measure is “the véritable science du

Legislateur” (DL:60). Indeed, those who set up laws have no legislative power, as this must

reside in the people. But for people to pass a law, they must be persuaded of it necessity. And

persuasion is about melody, images and the redounding of passions. The legislator is therefore

like a musician. He has to use melodious tunes, musical images, passionate speeches in order

to persuade his people and move them toward a virtues life. One of the reasons for

contemporary corruption is in the declining force of persuasion overcome by might and

domination: “Dans les anciens tems où la persuasion tenoit lieu de force publique l’éloquence

étoit nécessaire. À quoi serviroit-elle aujourdui que la force publique supplée à la

persuasion?” (EOL: 428). Coercion substituted persuasion, and might overcame right.

In the Social Contract Rousseau warns us that fully rational and dispassionate

discussion and deliberation on what must be the common interest, which is the object of the

common will, does not belong to the people. This is why “le Législateur ne pouvant employer

ni la force no le raisonnement, c’est une nécessité qu’il recoure à une autorté d’un autre ordre,

qui puisse entraîner sans violence et persuader sans convaincre” (MG: 317; CS:383). The

necessity to persuade and to establish institutions, but above all customs (mores), is the reason

why ancient legislators had to make recourse to religion. Here, he is quoting Machiavelli and

his description in the Discourses on Livy of Numa. In order to persuade Romans “who were

fierce and rude people” to accept Numa’s laws, he had to recourse to the fiction of gods

ordering them through him. By following Machiavelli, Rousseau takes his distance from

William Warburton, who in his Divine Legation of Moses (1737-1741) had joined religion

and politics at the origins of mankind, describing them as two different faces of the same coin.

On the contrary, Rousseau believes that religion and politics are two separated spheres, the

one may an instrument for the other, and he focused on the role of religion in supporting



24

politics in the establishment of civil institutions and shared customes “pouvoir donner ou lien

morale une force intérieure” (MG:318): “Voila ce qui força de tous tems les Péres des Nations

de recourrir à l’interevention celeste et d’honores les Dieux de leur proper sagesse” (MG:317;

CS:383). In this sense, religion in Rousseau’s political theory is above all a civic religion,

drafted on the classic examples of Athens and Rome, as well as on contemporary Geneva’s

Calvinist republic.

The role of the legislator in this framework also proves how untrustworthy the “people”

is. In fact, Rousseau is not arguing for a direct participation of every single citizen in any

single passage of political life, particularly in the executive or deliberative moments. The

process of approving a law, which belongs only to the sovereign body, is not a “deliberative”

process, and the function of evaluation and proposal only pertains to the government and its

offices (Urbinati: 2006). People assembled do not participate in a deliberative process, but

they only exercise the sovereign power of approbation and ratification of what is being

proposed by magistrates. Participation is the prerequisite of sovereignty, while deliberation is

rather a function delegated by the sovereign to the wisest part among the people through the

institutional devise of mandat imperatif . Deliberation is about reason and interests, and it is

proper of deliberation the rational and exact debating among wise, prudent and competent

individuals. Participation rather involves the expression of passions and feelings, and is about

sharing and communicating, it concerns the establishing of a political community as a unity.

To the public space of participation belongs the melody of a fluent discourse rather than the

appropriateness of deliberation.

In this sense, both deliberation and participation can only follow the first establishing

and constituting of a community. In this sense, the people do not exist before the

extraordinary act of a legislator establishing the first principles upon which to give an order to



25

a community out of a dispersed state of nature. And this is a matter for politicians who,

having a deep knowledge of men, are acquainted with the inner laws of functioning of a state

and of a political community: in other words to those politicians experts in the rules of reason

of state. This is a point not often raised by Rousseau’s scholarship, despite its relevance to

understand the extent to which the establishment of People as the holder of a sovereign power

can subsist only in accordance to the governance of population. Certainly, Rousseau describe

reason of state as a sort of political science rather than mere prudence or Machiavellianism.

Reason of state requires wisdom rather than prudence, and a political intellect rather than a

cunning mind. The starting point is the sad and “realistic” observation that government is not

a matter for the people, as for them to understand the maxims of justice or of the rule of

raison d’Etat “il faudroit que l’effet put devenir la cause, que l’esprit social qui doit être

l’ouvrage de l’institution présidêt à l’institution même, et que les hommes fussent avant les

loix ce qu’ils doivent devenir par elles” (MG:317; CS:383). The people as a political unity is

not the pre-requisite for a ordered community, but is the result of a process of composition

that a well ordered community makes possible. That is why, when confronting with the

generality, the language of wise politicians and legislators must express clarity, transparency,

immediacy to be understood. And this bring us back to music and to the theme of the origin of

languages. Early languages, in fact, were less exact but were stronger, and it must be the

effort of a politician and of a legislator to recover the might and immediacy of early

languages, their musicality. In fact: “Ce fut souvent l’erreur des sages de parler au vulgaire

leur langage ou lieu du sien; aussi n’en fuerent-ils jamais entedus. Il est mille sortes d’idée qui

n’ont qu’une langue et qu’il est impossibile de traduire au Peuple. Les vües trop générale set

les objets trop éloignes sont également hors de sa portée, et chaque Individu ne voyant, par

example, d’autre plan de gouvernment que son bonheur particulier, apperçoit difficilement les



26

avantages qu’il doit retired des privations continuelles qu’imposent les bonnes loix”

(MG:317; CS 383). This ability of making people understand, convince them in order to let

them approve what proposed according to the general interest, is indicative of a state of

freedom. In the last paragraphs of the Essay Rousseau affirmed that any language which

appears incomprehensible to the people, is a “servile language” (EOL, 428). There are

languages that are conducive to freedom; those are sonorous, harmonic and prosodic

languages resounding is public places and not in the private chambers or secret councils of

kings.

Rousseau tried to prove its ability to express a political science and a constituent

capacity by offering wise advices to the people of Corsica and Poland, in a way acting as an

hypothetical legislator. Being involved in the project of constitutions for Corsica he firstly

remarked that the process of corruption of mankind is so advanced that only in the rare case a

new political community, whose people are relatively untouched by the vices of civility and

modern politics, can realize a stable democratic republic. Because of that, in order to find the

best means to form a “people”, he deemed necessary to recur to persuasion and civic virtues

well as to a series of principles and policies for a wise governance of the “population”. In fact,

the number, strength, virtue of individuals living in a territory, its resources, together with a

light administration and an efficient agriculture are the prerequisite of any wise governance

and to the establishment and growth of a political community. The right division of a

territory, the exact balancing of resources are the element upon which it will be possible to

ordinate the sovereign, legislative, power and a wise and competent government. Moreover,

to prevent the corruption of political system, Rousseau has to recur to a peculiar institutional

harmony, that expressed by a system of checks and balances necessary to divide and control



27

the exercise of government as well as a system of “graduated promotions” in offices and

public charges in order to value virtue and civicness.

In this sense, the managing of the population is as much necessary to the well being of

a State as the creation of a nation by the establishment of shared meanings and customs. If the

latter aims to shape the People from “the inside”, to shape beliefs and behaviours through

customs, laws and a shared language, the former had to deal with those external factors that

allow the ordering of all the economical and productive characteristics of a territory and of the

population living on it. In a long passage of the project for Corsica dedicated to agriculture

and goods exchange, Rousseau clarify how a careful management of markets is the first and

most important policy of a government, and exactly in such a way that with the aid of the

government can raise commerce and exchanges to a point that the role of government itself

can become superfluous (PCC:141). In this sense, the governance of abundance and scarcity

is the governmental side of sovereignty and republicans. A wise politician must understand

the nature of his people if he wants to cherish it, strengthen it, and offering the right rules,

institutions and mores. This is the reason why a politician has to follow the rules of reason of

state which impose the knowledge and management of population. In this sense, the

observation that “qu’il y a dans tout corps politique un maximum de forces qu’il ne sauroit

passer” (MG:320; CS:386), is probably the fundamental maxims of reason of state necessary

to establish a nation. Indeed, this strength must be converted in political power and, despite

the unity of sovereignty, its exercise must be divided in a complex system of checks and

balances – as they are for example discussed in the Constitutional Project for Poland .

Senatorial oversight, legislative appointment of elected magistrates, rotation of offices,

frequent meetings of the Diet and frequent elections of deputies: are all necessary tools for

exercising a stable rule by keeping political liberty.



28

The harmonious language of a legislator is therefore necessary when establishing a

community for the first time, and this is a happy and melodic time when a wise politicians,

like Numa was, joined together sound arguments, passions, eloquence, fluency. Not

differently from the same philosophical movement that led Machiavelli to advocate the

recovery of the first principles of a republic to regenerate its virtue and institution, Rousseau

believed that to establish a language for free and people, such to be understood by the people,

is a movement of rediscovery of the origins of language out of sounds, melodies, gestures.

Nonetheless, if this may be sufficient to establish a community and to set up a legitimate

sovereignty, in order to govern such a state it is necessary to manage its population, its

territory and adequately set up the exercise of political power. Thus, the delicate sound of a

democratic republic lets emerge its “grey” side: the background noise of reason of state and

political economy.

BIBLIOGRAFIA

ROUSSEAU , J.J., Oeuvres Complètes de J. Jacques Rousseau, ed. B. Gagnebin and M.

Raymond, Paris, Gallimard, V tomes, 1959-1995.

- (AC) Accompagnement , pp. 618-627 in Dictionnaire de musique, texte établi et

présenté par Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, t.V (1995), pp.605-1191.

- (CS) Du Contract Social; ou, principes du droit publique, texte établie et annoté par

R. Derathé, t.III (1964), pp.347-470.



29

- (DI) Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité, texte établi et annoté par

Jean Starobinki, t.III (1964), pp.111-224.

- (DM) Dissertation sur la musique moderne, texte établi par Bernard Gagnebin et

annoté par Sidney Kleinman, t.V (1995), pp.167-245.

- (Em) Emile ou de l’education, texte établie par Charles Wirz, texte présenté et annoté

par Pierre Burgelin, t.IV (1969), pp.239-877.

- (EOL) Essai sur l’Origine des Langues où il est parlé de la mélodie et de l’imitation

musicale, texte établie et annoté par Jean Starobinski, t.V (1995), pp, 376-429.

- (EX) Examen de deux principes avancés par M. Rameau dans sa brochure intituleé

Erreurs sur la musique dans l’Encyclopédie, texte établie et annoté par Olivier Pot, t.II

(1995), pp. 347-370.

- (FP) Prononciation, texte établie et annoté par Charly Guyot t.II (1964), pp.1248-

1252.

- (IT) De l’imitation théatrale, texte établie par André Wyss, t.V (1995), pp.1195-1211.

- (LD) Lettre à M. D’Alambert sur son article Genève […] en particulièrement sur le

projet d’établir un Théâtre de Comédie en cette Ville, texte établie par Bernard Gagnebin et

annoté par Jean Rousset, t.V (1995), pp.1-125.

- (LM) Lettre sur la musique francoise, texte établie et annoté par Olivier Pot, t.V

(1995), pp.289-328.

- (MG) Du Contract Social ou Essai sur la forme de la République (première version),

texte établie et annoté par R. Derathé, t.III (1964), pp.279-346.



30

- (OM) L’Origine de la mélodie ou réponse aux erreurs sur la Musique, texte établi et

annoté par Marie-Élisabeth Duchez, t.V (1995), pp.331-343.

- (PC) Project concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique, texte établi par Bernard

Gagnebin et annoté par Sidney Kleinman, t.V (1995), pp.29-165.

- (PCC) Project de Constitution pour la Corse, texte établi et annoté par Sven Stelling-

Michaud, t.III (1964), pp.899-950.

- (PP) Project de Preface, texte établie et annoté par Jean Starobinski, t.V (1995), p.373.

SECONDARY LITERATURE

AUROUX, S., 2007 , La question de l’origine des langues suivi de L’historicité des

sciences, Paris, Puf.

BORA, P., 1989, Introduzione at J.J. R OUSSEAU, Saggio sull’origine delle lingue,

Torino, Einaudi.

BORA, P. , 1993, Sui concetti di “dispersion” e di “barbarie” nel “Saggio sull’origine

delle lingue” di Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Studi Settecenteschi”, 13, 1992-93, pp. 165-179

CARNEVALI B., 2004, Romanticismo e riconoscimento. Figure della coscienza in

Rousseau, Bologna, Il Mulino.

COLLISANI A., 2002, Musica, canto, parola nel Dictionnaire de musique di Jean-

Jacques Rousseau, “Studi di Estetica”, n.25, pp.117-149

DERATHE’, R., 1950, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la science politique de son temps, Paris,

J.Vrin.



31

DERRIDA, J., 1967, De la Grammatologie, Paris, Minuit.

DOBELS, P.J., 1986, The role of language in Rousseau’s Political Thought , “Polity”,

vol.18, n.4, pp.638-658.

DUCHET, M., 1971, Anthropologie et historie au siècle des lumières, Paris, Maspero.

DUCHET, M., LAUNAY, M., 1967, Synchronie et diachronie: l’«Essai sur l’origine des

langues» et le second «Discours», "Revue internationale de Philosophie", vol.82, pp.421-443.

DUCHEZ, M.E., 1974, Principe de la mélodie et Origine des langues: un brouillon inédit

de Jean Jacques Rousseau sur l’Origine de la mélodie, "Revue de Musicologie", vol.60,

pp.33-86.

DUGAN, C.N., STRONG T.B., 2001, Music, Politics, Theatre, and Representation in

Rousseau, in The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, ed. Patrick Riley, Cambridge,

Cambridge University Press, pp.329-364.

FOUCAULT, M., 2003 Sécurité, Territoire, Population. Cours au Collège de France

1978-1979, Seuil, Gallimard

GENTILE, G., 1980, Rousseau filosofo della crisi. Il politico e le masse, Napoli, Guida.

GENTILE, G., 1984; Introduzione a J.J. Rousseau, Saggio sull’origine delle lingue,

Napoli, Guida, pp.7-39.

GOLDSCHMIDT, V., 1974, Anthropologie et politique: les principles du systéme de

Rousseau, Paris, Vrin.

GOUREVITCH, V., 1997, Introduction, in J.J. Rousseau, The Discourses and Other Early

Political Writings, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.



32

GOUREVITCH, V., 1998, Rousseau’s pure state of nature, “Interpretation”, vol.16, pp.23-

59

GRANGE, H., 1967, «L’Essai sur l’origine des langues» dans ses rapports avec le

«Discours sur l’origine de l’inégalité», in “Annales historiques de la Révolution française”,

luglio-settembre, pp.291-307.

HONNETH, A., 1996, Patologien des Sozialen, Fischer Verlag, Franfurt a/M 1994.

HUDSON, N., 2005, Theories of language, in The Eighteenth Century, eds. H.B. Nisbet

and C. Rawson, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp.335-348.

LABORDE, D., 1994, Des passions de l’âme au discours de la musique, “Terrain. Revue

d’ethnologie de l’Europe”, n.22, pp.79-92

LOCHE, A., 2003, Immagini dello stato di natura in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Milano,

FrancoAngeli.

LOCKE, J., 1690, Essay on Human Understanding (a cura di A. Campbell Fraser) 2

vols, Dover, New York, 1959.

O’DEA, M., 1994, Rousseau contre Rameau: musique et nature dans les articles pour

l’Encyclopédie et au-delà, “Recherches sur Didarot et sur l’Encyclopédie”, n.17, pp.133-148.

O’DEA, M., 2003, Consonances et dissonances: Rousseau et D’Alambert face à l’oeuvre

théorique de Jean Philippe Rameau, “Recherches sur Didarot et sur l’Encyclopédie”, n.35,

http://rde.revues.org/index174.html

POLITZER , R.L., 1957, A Detail in Rousseau’s Thought: Language and Perfectibility,

“Modern Language Notes”, vol. 72, n.1 (Jan.), pp.42-47.

R EALE, M., 1983, Le ragioni della politica. J.J. Rousseau dal ‘Discorso

sull’ineguaglianza’ al ‘Contratto’ , Roma, Edizioni dell’Ateneo.





33

SAVINO, D., 2005, Le matrici del discorso espressivo nell’Essai sur l’origine des

langues di Jean Jacques Rousseau, “Rivista di filosofia neoscolastica”, ott./nov., pp. 593-625.

SCOTT, J.T., 1998, The harmony between Rousseau’s musical theory and his

philosophy, “Journal of History of Ideas”, 59(2), pp. 287-308.

SCOTT, J.T., 1997, Rousseau and the Melodious Language of Freedom, “The Journal of

Politics”, 59(3), pp. 803-829

SILVESTRINI, G., 2010, Diritto naturale e volontà generale. Il contrattualismo

repubblicano di J.J. Rousseau, Torino, Claudiana.

STAROBINSKI, J., 1971, J.-J. Rousseau. La transparence et l’obstacle, Paris, Gallimard.

STAROBINSKI, J., 1961, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et le péril de la réflexion, in L’oeil

vivant, Paris, Gallimard, l96l, pp. 9l-l88.

STAROBINSKI, J., 1990, Introduction at J.J. Rousseau, Essai sur l’Origine des Langues,

Paris, Gallimard.

THOMAS, D.A., 1995 Music and the origins of language. Theories from the French

enlightenment , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

TUGNOLI, C., 2005, Il problema dell’origine del linguaggio da Jean-Jacques Rousseau

a Wilhelm Wundt , “Dianoia. Annali di storia della filosofia”, n.10, pp.61-95.

WILLIAMS, D.L., 2005, Modern Theorist of Tyranny? Lessons from Rousseau’s System

of Checks and Balances, “Polity”, vol.37, n.4 (Oct.), pp.443-465.

VAUGHAN, C.E, Introduction to J.J. Rousseau, The Political Writings, New York, John

Wiley and sons, 2 vols, 1962, vol1. pp.1-123



34

WOKLER , R., 1974, Rameau, Rousseau, and the Essai sur l’origine des langues,

“Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century”, vol.117, pp.179-238.

WOKLER , R., 1978, Rousseau on Rameau and Revolution, “Studies in the Eighteenth

Century”, vol.4, pp.251-83.

WOKLER , R., 1987, Rousseau on society, politics, music and language: an historical

interpretation of his early writings, London-New York, Garland.

WORBURTON, W., 1737-1741, Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated on the

Principles of a Religious Deist, London, Printed for A. Millar and J. and R. Tonson, 1765.

Documents

Legislators as musicians. Rousseau’s melodious foundation of democratic republicanism and his Essai sur l’origine des langues