Man or Citizen

Anger, Forgiveness, and Authenticity in Rousseau

Karen Pagani

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780271070452
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Criticism

The French studies scholar Patrick Coleman made the important observation that over the course of the eighteenth century, the social meanings of anger became increasingly democratized. The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is an outstanding example of this change. In Man or Citizen, Karen Pagani expands, in original and fascinating ways, the study of anger in Rousseau's autobiographical, literary, and philosophical works. Pagani is especially interested in how and to what degree anger—and various reconciliatory responses to anger, such as forgiveness—functions as a defining aspect of one's identity, both as a private individual and as a public citizen. Rousseau himself was, as Pagani puts it, "unabashed" in his own anger and indignation—toward society on one hand (corrupter of our naturally good and authentic selves) and, on the other, toward certain individuals who had somehow wronged him (his famous philosophical disputes with Voltaire and Diderot, for example). In Rousseau's work, Pagani finds that the extent to which an individual processes, expresses, and eventually resolves or satisfies anger is very much of moral and political concern. She argues that for Rousseau, anger is not only inevitable but also indispensable, and that the incapacity to experience it renders one amoral, while the ability to experience it is a key element of good citizenship.

Table of contents

• COVER Front
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART 1: The Political Significance of Forgivenessand Anger in Rousseau’s Thought
• Chapter 1: The Magnanimous Pardon
• Chapter 2: The Philosophes’ Plot and the Frenchman’s Anger
• Chapter 3: The Productive Capacities of the Citizen’s Anger
• Chapter 4: The Frenchman’s Conundrum
• PART 2: Private, Interpersonal Forgiveness
• Chapter 5: Saint-Lambert’s and Rousseau’sMiraculous Reconciliation
• Chapter 6: Publicized Anger and the Unforgivable
• Chapter 7: Forgiveness Among Men and Citizens
• Chapter 8: To Forgive or Not to Forgive?That Is the Question
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• COVER Back