Abstract

Scholars sometimes describe Jean-Jacques Rousseau as an innovator of the modern concept of public opinion yet few can explain what his use of the term "l'opinion publique" means with certainty. Some writers equate its meaning with sentiments or vain prejudices while others identify public opinion with the general will. These conflicting interpretations give rise to important questions about the term's usage in Rousseau's writings and, more specifically, about the concept's role in his political thought. ;In this dissertation I reconstruct Rousseau's thoughts on public opinion to argue that his writings articulate a consistent theory of public opinion which scholars often overlook. This theory establishes the Genevan to be an important early thinker of the modern concept and, more importantly, one of the first authors to posit public opinion as a challenge to the absolutist state. Unlike Montaigne, Pascal, or Montesquieu, he is the first writer to examine the subject in a systematic manner and, even earlier than Condorcet, Turgot or Necker, recognize public opinion's relevance to politics. ;In this study I also investigate how Rousseau's ideas about public opinion illuminate the litany of rules and regulations governing citizens' social conduct in Considerations sur le Gouvernement de Pologne and, to a lesser extent, Du contrat social. Challenging current assumptions, I argue that his discussion of public opinion offers a partial solution to charges of utopianism and totalitarianism levelled against these works. Without denying the fancifulness or illiberality of many of the prescriptions in Pologne and Du contrat social, I show how Rousseau's concept demonstrates these criticisms to be less valid than appears. ;In this investigation I also examine how the theory of public opinion gives coherence to Rousseau's remarks about property, particularly private property. I argue that the assumptions underlying his definition of public opinion shed light upon many of his apparently conflicting descriptions of property in the Discours sur Inegalite, Economie politique, Emile, and Du contrat social and reveal his critique of private property to be directed against ostentatious wealth exclusively, rather than against all forms of private property