Rousseau and the Enlightenment Way Out of Immaturity

Abstract

As a true philosopher of the Enlightenment, Rousseau refuses the monarchy as a political order, nonetheless, the solution is not to be found in a social overthrow, but in a new education of men and citizens through which the degenerated society could be gradually renewed The present paper follows Rousseau's deduction of the constitution of the social through this new, individual path, proceeding from nature to reason, from the child as an asexual being to the sexual difference and from the imaginary to the symbolic ti. from child's relation to the governer (as opposed to the natural, biological father) to the relation to the legislator (as opposed to the king). Rousseau's constitution of the social is analysed beyond the alternative between democratic revolution and Utopia, and his concept of childhood is considered as a fantasy, producing the Enlightenment way out of immaturity into the dimension of history.