现代性的困境与卢梭的意图

The dilemma of modernity and Rousseau's solution

卢梭认为,霍布斯的自然权利论存在着无法克服的内在困境,这一困境导致了现代性的困境,即自由政体的困境。为了化解这一困境,卢梭本可以从德性出发,在古典政治哲学的层次上批判现代自然权利论,但他对自然和自由的教条主义理解促使他重新把霍布斯的自然状态当作思考的起点,选择在现代自然科学的地基上创建自己的学说,从古典政治哲学的阵营回到现代政治哲学的阵营。卢梭从霍布斯的前提出发,彻底改造了"自然状态"概念的实质意涵,这不仅没有化解现代性的内在困境,反而使现代性离理性精神越来越远,从而更加激进地推进了现代性。

Rousseau believed that Hobbes’s teachings of Natural Rights had an unsolvable problem,which led to the dilemma of the modernity,namely,the dilemma of free government.In order to solve this problem,Rousseau should have started from the view of virtue,criticizing the modern natural rights,but his dogma about the nature and freedom prompted him to take Hobbes'the state of nature as the starting point of thinking,and to choose to establish his own theory on the basis of modern natural science,which means that Rousseau changed his standing from the classic political philosophy to the modern one.Starting from Hobbes'prerequisite,Rousseau completely changed the essential implication of the“state of nature.”This,far from resolving the inherent dilemma of modernity,pushed instead modernity further and further away from rational spirit,hence promoting modernity in a more radical way.