Abstract
Rousseau's concept of human perfectibility and his suggestion that a group of anthropomorphic animals might actually be human beings in a primitive state of nature have led an increasing number of studies to cite hisDiscourseonInequalityfor offering an early version of Darwinian evolution. I argue that a different picture emerges once we examine Rousseau's discussion against the backdrop of eighteenth-century debates on the viability of the chain of being and the possibility of multiple human species. The significance of his speculation has less to do with his special insights on human descent than with the political point to be made were it true. Rousseau usesorangs-outanglike the pongo to construct a viable model for criticizing his contemporary Europe and to defend his claim that the kind of political inequalities associated with late European society do not issue from God or nature but are accidental events in the life of the species.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subject
Political Science and International Relations,Sociology and Political Science
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