O papel da imaginação na construção da identidade moral e política em Jean Jacques Rousseau

Abstract

The present thesis aims to propose the rescue of the concepts of imagination and identity in Rousseaunian theory, based on the re-reading of Jean Jacques Rousseau's anthropological, ethical, and political works. The thesis shows that imagination plays a fundamental role in the construction of social subject. In this sense, we will first investigate the condition of man in the state of nature, in order to understand what are the essential characteristics of human beings, and then investigate the condition of man in society; it is in this social stage that the relationship between the construction of man's identity and imagination becomes evident. Thus, the general structure of the text will be as follows: in the first chapter, we will present some considerations on how philosophers from the medieval period, namely St. Augustine, and modernity, Thomas Hobbes, position themselves regarding human nature. Diverging from these authors, Rousseau presents us with human beings who are essentially good. However, this innocence and candor persist for a short time, because when men migrate from the state of nature to life in society, they assume a corrupted nature. In the second chapter, in order to better understand how this process of corruption occurs, we will investigate the reasons that lead human beings to exchange that state in which they lived in a condition of equality and freedom for a state marked by envy and cheating, in other words, to exchange being for appearing. The answers to these questions will be sought essentially in the way the Genevan philosopher describes human passions throughout his works, and in the way they relate to imagination. Finally, in the third chapter, we will investigate the damage caused by imagination especially in the political field.