作为主权者之意志的公意及其可能性

The General Will as the Sovereign Will and Its Possibilities

卢梭的公意难以理解,但依据卢梭的著作,我们可以把公意看做主权者之意志,其目的在于反对不平等,避免人对人的依附。但这并不是公意的全部。因为人类政治社会之所以存在人对人的依附,关键在于人本身具有把"我"转移到他者身上的能力。因此,公意的问题就在于,每一个人如何发挥这种转移能力,与他人一道形成一个平等的主权者共同体,使其真正成为每一个人依赖的中心,把人与人的相互依附转变为每一个人对共同体的依赖。

Although it is difficult to understand Rousseau's general will,there are still clues in Rousseau's works for solving this problem.We can think of Rousseau's general will as the sovereign will against inequality.But this is not sufficient enough to fully understand it,for,according to Rousseau,the reason why we can find the dependence on each other in political societies is that man has the ability to transport the I into others.This ability gives man a relative existence.Therefore,how the general will can be developed or formed is determined by what chance each man can have to take advantage of this ability to establish an equal sovereign community,and make it a central community for each man to depend on.In this way,we can change man's dependence on each other into dependence on the community.