The Philosophers' Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume, and the Limits of Human Understanding

by Robert Zaretsky, John T. Scott

The rise and spectacular fall of the friendship between the two great philosophers of the eighteenth century, barely six months after they first met, reverberated on both sides of the Channel. As the relationship between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume unraveled, a volley of rancorous letters was fired off, then quickly published and devoured by aristocrats, intellectuals, and common readers alike. Everyone took sides in this momentous dispute between the greatest of Enlightenment thinkers.

In this lively and revealing book, Robert Zaretsky and John T. Scott explore the unfolding rift between Rousseau and Hume. The authors are particularly fascinated by the connection between the thinkers’ lives and thought, especially the way that the failure of each to understand the other—and himself—illuminates the limits of human understanding. In addition, they situate the philosophers’ quarrel in the social, political, and intellectual milieu that informed their actions, as well as the actions of the other participants in the dispute, such as James Boswell, Adam Smith, and Voltaire. By examining the conflict through the prism of each philosopher’s contribution to Western thought, Zaretsky and Scott reveal the implications for the two men as individuals and philosophers as well as for the contemporary world.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, Biography

264 pages, Hardcover

Published March 3, 2009

About the author

Robert Zaretsky is a literary biographer and historian of France. He is Professor of Humanities at the Honors College, University of Houston, and the author of many books, including A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning and Boswell’s Enlightenment. Zaretsky is the history editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, a regular columnist for The Forward, and a frequent contributor to The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Foreign Policy.

Reviews

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years ago I bought a book called Rousseau's Dog about the fractured friendship between David Hume and Jean-Jacques, written by the guys who wrote the entertaining Wittgenstein's Poker. Compared to the poker, the dog was a dry affair and I deserted the drama halfway through. Recently I've been reading Rousseau, so I picked up The Philosopher's Quarrel, which covers much the same territory but in more depth. It's still fairly academic, not what I'd call a riveting read, but the authors do a fine job of illuminating the difference between these two famous philosophers of the Enlightenment.

Hume is a writer who gives me pleasure every time I dip into his essays; Rousseau wrote one book I enjoy – The Confessions – but that (at least as far as I've got) is spectacular. (I plan to give Reveries of a Solitary Walker another try, too.) No doubt about it: Rousseau was an incredible disaster. Every book he wrote was a sensation, yet at the end of his life he was still complaining. "What am I doing in this world? Though made to live, I am instead dying without ever lived." Hume, by contrast, remained equable to the end. "I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire."

[Hamid · Rating 4 out of 5]

1.متاسفانه از زندگی شخصی هیوم چیز چندانی به قلم خودش نمانده است و کل زندگی نامه ای که هیوم درباره خودش نوشته، فقط 6 صفحه است. این کتاب فرصتی بی نظیر است تا بار دیگر و این بار در میان نامه های هیوم به روسو و دوستانش او را بشناسیم.
2.اگر "اعترافات" روسو را خوانده اید، این کتاب نوری بر برخی جنبه های کمتر دیده شده یا بازگو شده ی روسو در اعترافات می اندازد.
3. اما مهم تر از همه خواندن این کتاب ما را با شیوه بسیار جالبی در تاریخ نویسی اندیشه ها آشنا می کند. نویسندگان این کتاب با بهانه قرار دادن دعوای هیوم و روسو و نامه نگاری این دو به هم، نگاهی عمیق به معرفت شناسی این دو فیلسوف دوره روشنگری می اندازند و آن را موشکافانه در تمامی زندگی این دو متفکر دنبال می کنند.
4. ترجمه و چاپ این کتاب بسیار خوب است و من تقریبا یک نفس آن را خواندم

خواندن این کتاب را به همه علاقمندان فلسفه پیشنهاد می کنم

[YeOldeReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Similar to David Edmonds's Wittgenstein's Poker, the subject did not warrant a book length treatment. Most of the book is a litany of boorish behavior by both of the protagonists toward themselves and seemingly everyone either of them encounters. Great ideas, clearly, can come from deplorable people.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written narrative of… well, the quarrel between two philosophers of the Enlightenment, namely David Hume and J.J. Rousseau. If the reader is to accept the account presented by the authors at face value, he would feel gently prodded to taking the side of Hume, who rationally and methodically responds to Rousseau’s vile, puerile, and chimerical accusations that seem not to have any basis, but rather stem mainly from his inner ‘sentiments’.

The book does well to emphasize that Hume and Rousseau broke off with the general mainstream that upholds reason’s supreme role in our dealings with the world –instead, both philosophers turn to nature and seek more solace in heeding our sentiments. While Rousseau does this through an introspection, inspiration, and a fleetingly adventurous spirit, Hume seeks the limits of human understanding, leans on science, and empiricism. Both philosophers posit that nature (and not reason!) is the remedy to human condition. Rousseau adopts a darker conception of society and the culture it weaves around an intrinsically good-natured man, while Hume takes a more positive stance on society in general, and in fact acts as ‘ambassador of philosophy for the masses’. These are great but broad strokes of their philosophical views indeed (mostly first half of the book), the book, however, could have been improved upon had it included more depth in these areas, rather than dwelling in frivolous details of their epistolary banter and the surrounding salon gossip (mainly the second half of the book).

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable account of the introduction, brief friendship and then unaccountable estrangement of philosophers Jean Jacques Rousseau and David Hume. The book is more about their personalities than about their philosophies and what philosophy the author discusses would be, I think, quite understandable for someone without too much familiarity with the history of philosophy. As I've mentioned before, I already do not like Rousseau (if you didn't know, he had, I think, five children with his housekeeper every one of which he abandoned at the local foundling hospital). The book made me like him even less. But I also like Hume more. Well, more is probably not a good choice of words since I didn't previously have much of a familiarity with his biography. The whole book is proof positive that philosophers are as driven by their emotions as the rest of us! 5/09

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

The constant play by play became very tedious. I wanted more substance of the intellectual battle of wits, and instead all I got was the sense of an epistolary flutter of pages violently being dispatched through the mail. As a reader of intellectual histories, this one was straight up boring.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me first discuss what disappointed me. Not until the tenth chapter do we actually get into the substance of the "quarrel." Most of the first 148 pages (the book is only 210 pages long) are introductions to Rousseau, Hume, and Voltaire, and, to a lesser extent, the people of the age of enlightenment. Did the writers not assume the readers would know about Rousseau, Hume and Voltaire? The other major flaw for me was the obvious bias for Hume in this quarrel, and, based on this book, a bias for the man and for Hume's philosophy. They rightfully connect the lives of both philosophers with their actions and their writings, but I would have preferred more objectivity. The number of times they quote others in their view of Rousseau as a lunatic, a madman, and someone insane is sad, whereas Hume is almost always the rational one, the responsible one, and the model human. At times they tried to understand Rousseau, but overall it was not a sympathetic or profound assessment. But it is hard work to explain someone who uses their intuition--like many artists, by the way--rather than their "reason." I sometimes think the authors forget that Rousseau's greatest book is The SOCIAL Contract. Rousseau intuitively sensed something about Hume that disturbed him. I think Hume made a big mistake releasing the correspondence about the quarrel to others to make himself innocent, whereas Rousseau wanted it to be a private matter. Rousseau had opportunities to defend himself and accuse Hume "publicly" and in books, but refused to do it. That gesture to me does not sound like a madman. On the contrary, it was the more compassionate approach.

Their treatment of Rousseau reminds me--though the philosophies are different--of how Max Stirner is viewed by some thinkers today. The introduction to the Cambridge edition of Stirner's book The Ego and Its Own would prejudice anyone from taking the man seriously. I would say the same for Zaretsky and Scott in this interpretation of Rousseau and his life, if someone only reads this book. [I have not read their other book: Frail Happiness: An Essay on Rousseau.]

The good qualities of this book are two: It is well-written, taking difficult philosophy and making it clear and elegant. They also smoothly shift from the thought of the philosophers to their lives and the connection of the two. Finally they set the reader nicely into the era in their descriptions of the cities and towns of France, Switzerland, and England, as well as the well-known figures of that time who had relationships with the two thinkers.

[Dayi Behrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب بیشتر از این که به حدود فهم انسان بپردازد، به مرز بین فلسفه و ادبیات پرداخته بود. اما کتاب جالبیست و خواندن آن را خالی از لطف نمی‌بینم. ۹۹ درصد کتاب، روایتگر رابطه بین روسو، هیوم، ولتر و... است اما همان یک درصدی هم که درباره فلسفه صحبت می‌کرد بسیار برایم جذاب بود.

[Nelson Rosario · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend this book to anyone that has an interest in philosophy generally, or Hume and Rousseau specifically. The book starts off somewhat slow, but once it picks up you can hardly put it down.

The authors do a good biographical treatment of each philosopher before the two, Rousseau and Hume, meet and then eventually part ways. The actual encounter between the two men seems to last longer than the number of pages indicates. As the book progresses you also learn about philosophy during the enlightenment period.

What was an unexpected surprise was the insight provided into the life of leisure amongst the learned class during the enlightenment period. The authors' treatment of the intrigue surrounding the quarrel between Rousseau and Hume is very interesting.

I came away from the book with an appreciation for both men and their vastly different approach to finding meaning in life. The book definitely helped me focus my interest in the topic and gave me ideas of what to pursue next for my next philosophy book.

Again, I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in either philosopher, or philosophy in general.

[The American Conservative]

'The strength of the book is that the story told is a pleasure to read. Zaretsky and Scott open a window into the 18th-century republic of letters... And the story is a page-turner, graced with colorful episodes, disregard of temporal order, flashbacks, and dramatic reversals.
The weakness of the book, however, is that it provides only the vaguest account of how this quarrel reveals limits to “the Enlightenment’s conception of human reason and understanding.” There is no explanation of what is meant by Enlightenment. Weighty and philosophically contested terms such as “reason,” “nature,” and “feeling” are used without definition. And when philosophical claims are made about these contested notions, they are presented intermittently, almost as side comments.'

Read the full review, "The End of Enlightenment," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...

[Philip Chaston · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau met in Paris and struck up a friendship. This led to a a period of love; the fleeting disillusionment of blame, tears and paranoia before they fell out, never to speak again.

Robert Zaretsky charts the lives of two (philosophical) teenagers in love: the rational boy perplexed by the moodswings and irrational charges of his lover; the girl, irritated and paranoid about the motivations of her friend.

Just as this friendship can be viewed through the prism of their irreconcilable philosophies, the story has such a strong psychological charge (with an immature, homoerotic spin, if one so chose). There is more more than one way to skin the particular cats in this massacre.

[Franz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Covers the same ground as Rousseau's Dog by Edmunds and Eidinow, but with much more attention to how Hume's and Rousseau's philosophies was reflected in their characters, or perhaps it's the other way around. Hume's and Rousseau's personalities are sketched in more detail in this book. In spite of Zaretsky's attempt to picture Rousseau in the best light he can, it's hard not to recognize that Rousseau severely wronged Hume. He comes across as an ungrateful and self-regarding ass. Still, an interesting story showing a congenial Hume trying to do the right thing by his friend who proved unworthy of his friendship.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a highly readable, blessedly jargon-free account of not only two giants of the Enlightenment, but of an age that can be said to spawn what we have come to know as contemporary celebrity culture. I have always admired the work of Robert Zaretsky, especially his work on Camus, so I came with high expectations when I began this book. I have to say that it did not disappoint. And although the book is rather short (210 pages excluding notes and index), one gets the sense of having experienced an entire graduate course on the subject.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did manage to finish this, but just. And I had to spend a lot of time rereading portions of Rousseau's and Humes' writings, and focus all my attention, and I could just follow. Interesting in a way, but was a lot of effort for the payoff.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part social history, part case history this book about the brief and strange relationship between David Hume and Jean Jacques Rousseau helped clarify the great division in modern thought that these two philosophers initiated.

[Robert Frandeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having studied french literature at an impressionable age, I considered Rousseau and company mystically unreachable, to be adored but never comprehended. It was good to get some down to earth understanding.

[Joanna Kyriakakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet again, Zaretsky (in this instance with Scott) creates an eminently readable history that provides the necessary mix of reflection on the subjects' psychologies, philosophies, social and political worlds, and personal dramas to carry the thirsty reader along. Like a refreshing glass of water.

[Athena · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read about the well-publicized quarrel between Hume and Rousseau. Makes today's spats in the New York Review of Books seem trivial!