Establihsing the Retreat into the Self: the selfs relation to self.

The first few pages: Me voici donc seul sur la terre, nayant plus de frre, de prochain, dami, de socit que moi-mme. Mais moi, dtach deux et de tout, que sius-je moi-mme ? p.3 So he has no intention of defining himself in terms of others ; we tend to define ourselves in terms of our relation to other people ; as son or daughter, brother or sister, mother of father. But Rousseau is seeking to define himself not in terms of others, or his relation to others.

The construction and object of the enquiry

This internal space in which the self relates to itself. Intimacy with reader that scorns the philosophical impersonality and objectivity. This is not merely a method to be followed in theoretical echelon of academia; it is a way of life for Rousseau, partly inflicted on him by his persecutors, partly owing to his old age and the need to reflect on his life, partly because this withdrawal brings him the greatest happiness. The mode of the Confessional Confessional: le projet de decrire The mode of the confessional in which the object of enquiry is the author himself. The confessional mode in literature is when the author is the hero of the tale.

Romanticism: the deliberate, self-conscious and prominent positioning of the authors presence and personality within the text. The artist was the hero of his art. So it is this intimate space of Rousseaus relation with himself into which we are permitted to enter with this text. The reader gains privileged access to his innermost personal reflections. Contrast with Descartes The difference between this and Descartes who posited himself as the object of his enquiry but intended to discover himself in universal terms res cogitans; cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am; but what it it that I think that makes me a unique individual being; what is it about me that constructs my personality and identity? Rousseau only wishes to discover himself in personal terms.

The Relation with oneself In posing the question of his self (which seems naturally to us, and to our Western emphasis on hte individual, the rights of hte individual) Mais moi, dtach deux et de tout, que suis-je moi-mme? Not only is his focus on himself as the object of his investigation, but he deems himself worthy of conducting and executing this investigation. The other deux must be set aside so that he can focus on himself and the object of his investigation.

Seul pour la reste de ma vie, puisque je ne trouve quen moi la consolation, lsperance et la paix, je ne dois ni ne veux plus moccuper de moi. Cest dans cet tat que je reprends la suite de lexamen svre et sincre que jappelai jadis mes Confessions. Je consacre mes derniers jours

mtudier moi-mme et prparer davance le compte que je ne tarderai pas rendre moi. p. 9 So it is Rousseau who is the first reader of his work, in a sense. He is the prominent author, the subject and the first reader of or the audience of his own work. The relationship to the other is however still present inasmuch as he writes to a future public who he hopes he will accept his justification.

The motivation behind this retreat into the self

1. Against Enlightenment systematisation. Rousseau and the self, the intimate relation with the self, in the midst of rational systematisation. He returns from the philosophical question of What is thre to be known? to Who am I? I do not find myself amidst the biological, physiological or anatomical knowledge. Nor do dI find my relatin with God within this matrix. The isolation and identification of the self as a problematic, a moral, religious and practical question of life. 2. Persecution This isolation of the self can also be understood in terms of his perceived and actual persecution. His persecutors can do no more harm: he has reached a state whereby the twists of fate no longer perturb him. The new calm that has reached him. His retreat within himself is nonetheless a typical or classical philosophical move: Know thyself as was Platos maxim. Classical Ideal No control over fate, but control over myself: Resoan can govern what is disobedient to itthe passions. The Classical and Stoical Ideal of happiness was that one should reach a state that whatever fate dished out, one would

have a erached a certain contentnes with oneself, with one distinctly and definitively did have control over, to render the arrows of fortune superfluous.

Thrown into Individual existence- existentialist.

Tout est fini pour moi sur la terre. On ne peut my faire ni bien ni mal. In me reste plus rien esprer ni craindre en ce monde, et my voil tranquille au fond de labime, pauvre comme mortel infortun Tout ce qui mest tranger dsormais. Je nai plus en ce monde ni prochain, ni semblables, ni frres. Je suis sur la terre comme dans une plante trangre, o je serais tomb de celle que jhabitais. p. 8 This is a remarkable sentence which would not be out of place in the existentialist thematic of mans fundamental condition ; man is thrown into the world alone and isolated by his own consciousness. Western sense of the individual existing apart from the community or society in which he lives (entirely foreign to Oriental thinking for example). The Wests concentration on the individual (the rights of the individual being perhaps emphasized over the common good perhaps begins with Rousseau). But he hopes to justify himself to himself The estrangement from the world thus enables him to isolate himself or his self as a viable object of enquiry.

The title and its elements

The individual imagination of a solitary human being all this contained in Rousseaus title. The relationship wit the self the first line. Plus. De socite que moi-mme. Rveries

The figure of the promenade. The solitary walker is the ideal pratical activity which figures this interiority. The personal style as against an objective scientism. p. 10 the thoughts as they come to him (not a reasoned argument). Introspection of the actuality of his consciousness his thoughts as they come to him successively, not as the final putting down of deliberations in the form of an argument. Spontaneity. Je me contenterai de tenir le register des operations sans chercher les rduire en systme. P. 11 Deuxime promenade. Why the walk ? why not the Mediataions? Or a Discours sur la mthode? His desire to be unmethodical, to capture thought as it springs from our existence on the earth, Communing with nature. Away from others solitary. The path through life: his one has been tortuous: this is where happiness is to be found. God is tobe found in nature a certain pantheism. Nature as the manifestation of God Romanticism. Because this is when he is pleinement moi As nature wished him to be. So fucking unnatural! Trainspotting

The walk as aimless transport, delivered from every goal within a means/end, functional relation. More reminiscence than imagination. Souvenirs: je nexisterais plus que par des souvenirs sa propre substance - concerned about getting to the properness of his soul. au-dedans de moi la source de vrai bonheur est en nous p. 14 Phenomenology of consciousness es ides suivre leur pente p. 13

Sa vie intime de lme. P. 10 The interiority reaches its apotheosis : he says that he writes these reflections only for himself.

Seconde Promenade
Memory and imagination: more of the former.

Un registre fidle ??? p. 14 and earlier p. 15 first mention of flowers limage de la solitude deserted countryside lesprit encore orn de quelques fleurs p. 15/16 to God, he gives if not hte offering of great works, then at least p. 16 The accident with a dog. p. 17 he describes the moment when he awoke a delicious moment when he was aware of nothing but himself. He did not know where he was and so considered himself to be reborn. He knew not where he was, neither the place nor the time.

Troisime Promenade
Lignorance est bien prferable. Knowledge within the question of lifes journey and ones age. BY the time one has learned what one needs to know, it is too late ot implement it. Knowledge and death: this is the pratical knowledge that one implements in living, in knowing how one should live. The knowledge that he has gained that he was the toy and was duped by his friends has no practical value for he cannot now use it to his advantage. This will be raise the question of the lie, and of deception that he will inquire into later. His inquiry thus manages to stem from and be motivated by the circumstances in which he finds himself. He need only learn how to die? Still learning to live when it is time to die Derrida???

p. 27 Jen ai beaucoup vu qui philosophaient bien plus doctement que moi, mais leur philosophie leur tait pour ainsi dire trangre. Voulant tres plus savants que dautres, ils tudiaient lunivers pour savoir comment il tait arrang, comme ils auraient tudi quelque machine quils auraient aperue, par pure curiosit. Ils tudiaient la nature humaine
pour en pouvoir parler savamment, mais non pas pour se connatre ; ils travaillaient pour instruire les autres mais non pas pur sclairer en dedans. [] Pour moi, quand jai dsir dapprendre ctait pour savoir moi-mme et non pas pour enseigner. [] Ce quon doit faire dpend beaucoup de ce quon doit croire, et sans tout ce qui ne tient pas aux premiers besoins de la nature nos opinions sont la rgle de nos actions. p. The Mechanistic view of the world : age of anatomy and physiology. Descartes and the ghost in the machine.

p. 28 beautifully written paragraph on his solitary youth spent in the countryside and in nature which drew him to ask as to the cause of all things before he was thrown into the torrent of life. p.29 he had resolved to renounce the world and all his ambitions from the age of 40. from worldliness, from fashionable clothes wigs, stockings, Not limiting himself to exterior things, he resolved to examine himself: btm p. 29. A moral world unveiled itself before him. La tumulte de la socit: the task he has set himself demanded a complete retreat and isolation from the world in which he had felt himself so entirely out of place. He was forced to do this by his persecutors who actually and ironically did exactly what was needed for his happiness. He opposed himself to the ardent atheists and dogmatics fashionable at the time. He was never convinced by their arguments but they shook his world. He felt incapable of responding by hus reason though his heart always felt that their was a response. P.31 Was he always to be torn apart by the opinions of others which he could not even be sure were their own? It was their passions which governed their doctrines. The age of his Reformation: 1757-1762

He planned that the rest of his life should follow from his principles the principles he was to discover by undertaking a self examination and the construction of his own philosophy, a philosophy that would not distinguish between his personal beliefs, the philosophy he would profess and the law that would dictate his action. He does not pretend to have answers to all the objections that his principles can brook, but must decide to abide by them in any case. He would class them as arguties and as metaphysical subtleties which coulod not make him swerve from his adherence to the principles of his reason confirmed by his heart confirms par mon coeur, et qui tous portent le sceau de lassentiment intrieurement dans le silence The place of the imagination as lying between the passions and reason: imagination is related to those irrational passions and desires as in dreams and reveries, but also occupies a place for the first time perhaps, in Kant, some 20 odd years after the Reveries, in experience and in knowledge. Imagination and the retreat into solitude faculty which enables us to empathise with a person, and not merely understand an argument. What is one to do when an objection to ones system presents itself but which cannot or should not overturn the whole philosophy so carefully thought out, assented to by ones reason and ones heart (and not merely proffered) Je me crois sage, et je ne suis que dupe, victime et martyr dune vaine erreur. P. 37

Cinqime Promenade

End of the fifth chapter wonderful stuff on happiness, hte moment and surroundings and the flight into reverie.