The Modern Self in Rousseau's Confessions. A Reply to St. Augustine (review)

592 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY e3:4 OCTOBER 1985 Ann Hartle, The Modern Self in Rousseau's Confessions. A Reply to St. Augustine. Revisions . A Series of Books on Ethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983. Pp. xiii + a86. $a9.95. In his forward to this book Alasdair Maclntyre points out that almost all detailed studies of Rousseau (and he mentions one of my own) ignore the question of Rousseau 's indebtedness to St. Augustine. While it may be readily agreed that the Augustinian element in the thought of the Enlightenment merits further investigation, it is doubtful whether Rousseau's Confessions provide a suitable starting-point for such an enquiry. Professor Hartle's claim that Rousseau was making a deliberate "reply" to Augustine does not seem to me to be supported by any firm evidence. There are only two specific references to Augustine in the Confessions and one of them denies any direct knowledge of him! Even if, as is suggested, Rousseau borrowed his title from Augustine, this does not prove that be bad made a serious study of his predecessor. The only work in which Rousseau quotes Augustine at length is the polemical Letter to Beaumont, his reply to the Archbishop of Paris's condemnation of Emile. As other critics have already suggested, it is likely that Rousseau's limited knowledge of Augustine was based on secondary sources such as Le Sueur or Jansenist authors. The confrontation with Augustine leads Hartle to treat Rousseau as an example of the modern self, Whereas Augustine sees human nature almost exclusively in relation to God, Rousseau is said to locate the true self outside the range of conscious reflection: it is an inner self, good and pure, invisible to others, hidden behind a man's actions and apparently accessible only to his imagination. It may well be true that Rousseau tended to see himself in this light, but I am not sure that this is a typically 'modern' self, for this could be more appropriately identified with the total personality revealed in the Confessions--not simply the self Rousseau believed himself to be, but the lonely, complex and often tormented being who emerges from the pages of the narrative. This study establishes the link between Rousseau and Augustine by treating the Confessions as a "philosophical work of art" concerned with the description of man "according to nature"; as such, it is not autobiography but a "statement about man." Since, however , the Confessions describe the "history of a soul" rather than the events of a life, they have to be considered as an "artful construction" carefully elaborated by the "creative imagination." This is certainly an interesting aspect of the work, but it does not follow that the autobiographical and psychological aspects of the work can be disregarded; Rousseau's soul cannot be completely separated from his body's actions, however often these may have betrayed or imperfectly expressed its "real" nature; both his past behavior and its concomitant feelings help to determine the "true" meaning of the work and so prevent it from being mere fiction. Moreover, because the Confessionsare a "history" and a "portrait," they have a strongly individual and personal character which is not easily (if at all) amenable to philosophical analysis. Indeed, the strictly philosophical element with its emphasis on the notion of natural goodness does not add very much to the ideas of the didactic writings, whereas the combination of psychological, aesthetic and existential elements gives the work its uniqueness and complexity. BOOK REVIEWS 593 Although Hartle is not unaware of this aspect of the Confessions, her preoccupation with the opposition between the "modern" Rousseau and the medieval Augustine prevents her from giving it careful consideration. This is a pity because the central sections of her book are devoted to some of the characteristic themes of Rousseau's work---death and immortality, time and the self, imagination and memory and the relationship between human nature and Providence--about which she often makes perceptive comments. After calling attention to the ambiguity of some of Rousseau's religious ideas, it would have been useful to relate them to their didactic formulation in a work such as the...