Přesvědčit bez přesvědčování: postava zákonodárce ve "Společenské smlouvě"

Abstract

The article addresses the figure of the legislator in Rousseau’s Social Contract (II, 7), and that with regard to an analysis of the turnabout by which Rousseau states the task of the legislator: to bring people to accept laws, that is, “to persuade without convincing.” After introducing the problematic of the role of the lawgiver as a bearer of authority, we point, with the help of linguistic analysis, to the different meaning of the verbs used to express convincing, either by means of rational arguments [convaincre] or with an appeal to feelings and inner convictions [persuader]. The exceptionality of the legislator is then shown in the fact that, in the course of fulfilling his task to persuade people and guide them to adopt laws, he resorts to pretense and, by his manner, to lies. In the final part of the article, we analyze how on the linguistic level Rousseau in his political work differentiates the two moments of the emergence of political society, i.e. the moment of transition from the natural to the civil state in the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men and the establishment of the general will through the pact and the subsequent adoption of laws establishing a citizen body in the Social Contract.

Keywords

• jean-jacques rousseau
• legislator
• convincing
• social contract
• laws