Berman Robert - On the happiness of the philosophic life: reflections on Rousseaus Rêveries in two books

The present writing is the result of a friendship that grew over thirty-five years and of a conversation that deepened in phases, occasionally interrupted, but never broken off. It could not have been written without the studies in the founding of political philosophy that have preoccupied me since the middle of the 1980s. And it could never have come to be without the thorough engagement with the Discours sur lingalit whose yield is contained in my 1984 critical edition. At that time I considered Rousseaus early masterpiece as his most philosophic writing, since it was not clear to me that the Rveries have the philosophic life itself for their theme and that the Rveries are not part of Rousseaus uvre in the demanding sense of the term. My error was supported by the philosophically most discerning sources, and it corresponded to the authors intention that the reader seek access to his philosophy by engaging seriously with his uvre.

The writing consists of two books, which are designed to illuminate one another reciprocally. The first undertakes to think the philosophic life with constant regard to Rousseaus least understood book. The second gives a continuous interpretation of Rousseaus most controversial book, which tries to lay the ground for a successful nonphilosophic life, i.e., attempts to conceive its foundations. The Profession de foi du Vicaire Savoyard, to which Rousseau emphatically refers the reader of the Rveries, stands in my confrontation with the Rveries for the uvre whose significance for the philosophic life is a prominent object of Rousseaus self-reflection. In the second book I am particularly interested in the distinction between Natural Religion and Natural Theology. It is suited to serve as a supplement to the distinction between political theology and political philosophy.

The interpretation of the Rveries and of the Profession de foi du Vicaire Savoyard presented here was worked out in a series of seminars that I gave at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt in Munich starting in 2001, at Boston College in 2003, and in the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago in 2008 and 2010. Parts of the first and second chapters were tested in public lectures in Boston, Freiburg in Breisgau, Kyoto, Beijing, Chicago, London, and Berlin.

The writing on Rousseaus last book will be followed by a twin writing on Nietzsches last book. Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist has in common with Les rveries du Promeneur Solitaire not only that it is the least understood book of its author. The two books converge with one another in that both treat the philosophic life.

H. M.

Munich, October 15, 2010