Figurations of the Pedagogical and of the Political: Rousseau's critique of the social immanence of symbolic representation

For Rousseau, it is the political and strategic struggle for meaning without any transcendent reference points that undermines the foundations of community and individual identity. In both the Emile and the Contrat Social, he turns against the ruinous logic of such struggles for meaning and consequently, against a representation which has become bottomless. Rousseau's Emile treats this political issue pedagogically, through the conception of a dual approach of governmentality. With regard to (pre-social) childhood, problems of representation and social struggles for meaning are excluded. At a later stage, the Emile makes use of a privileged-normal strategy of governmentality which, at least, simultaneously relativizes the recourse to a 'natural meaning' and makes it seem possible. In the Contrat Social -- which presupposes the loss of self of the individual -- the political space is structured by a particular criterion of legitimacy: the difference between the General Will and Everyone's Will, -- a difference that cannot be resolved. So, in this context, too, one is left with the interplay of (transcendental) foundation and strategic disputes over the "true". Adapted from the source document.