French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Deneys-Tunney, Another Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Paradox of Technology
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Another Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Paradox of Technology
Anne Deneys-Tunney

Published: 21/04/2010
Publisher: PUF
Series: fondements de la politique
ISBN: 978-2-13-057827-7
EAN: 9782130578277
No. of pages: 153 pages

Publisher's price: 16,00€

Was Jean-Jacques Rousseau—the nostalgic thinker of a lost "pure nature" and the fall into technical society—lost in the Age of Enlightenment, to which he was fundamentally foreign? This hackneyed interpretation of a body of work that can by no means be reduced to such a cliché deserved to be re-examined step by step.

To be sure, Rousseau understood that technology is as decisive as it is irreversible for modern man and society, and he measured its consequences in every area where it imposes itself on the individual, in both moral and political life. In doing so, moreover, he prophetically foresaw and denounced its risks and dangers. Yet at the same time, the author of the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, Emile, and The Social Contract proposed a philosophy aimed at reconciling man with his machines, even suggesting that technology could allow human self-fulfillment within human societies.

Thus, we are presented with another Rousseau: one who opposed the ideology of progress for progress's sake and "technological absolutism," who asserted the moral values of autonomy and freedom, and who defined—long before the scientific revolutions of the modern era—an ambitious ecological and ethical program of "precaution" (H. Jonas). Is Rousseau not a thinker of "sustainability" for the 21st century?

Contents:

TECHNOLOGY AND CHILDHOOD
TECHNOLOGY AND MORALS
TECHNOLOGY AND HISTORY
TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION
TECHNOLOGY AND FREEDOM
TECHNOLOGY AND AESTHETICS
TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS
POSTERITY

The author:

A professor of 18th-century French literature and philosophy at New York University and an associate researcher at the CNRS (specifically within the Centre d'étude de la langue et de la littérature française à l'âge classique and Transitions research units), Anne Deneys-Tunney has edited the works of Volney and Destutt de Tracy (Fayard).
She is the author of Ecritures du corps: De Descartes à Laclos (Pur, 1992) and co-edited the issue of the journal Dix-huitième siècle dedicated to "the Epicureanism of the Enlightenment" (PUF/CNRS 2003).

* * *

In the June 18, 2010 issue of Le Monde des livres, one could read this article:

Review of "Another Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Paradox of Technology" by Anne Deneys-Tunney: Rousseau, a well-tempered technophile LE MONDE DES LIVRES | 17.06.10 |

An enemy of the Enlightenment, an opponent of progress, a fierce critic of man's alienation by his tools, a "savage" hostile to nascent industry, a "barbarian" enemy of "the sciences and the arts" that degrade body and mind—this is how Rousseau is most often presented. And, indeed, how he presented himself. For there is no shortage of texts in which he views technology as an evil, and as the source of all the ills that, over the centuries, have ultimately overwhelmed humanity, denatured it, and reduced it to servitude.

The merit of Anne Deneys-Tunney's lucid and well-documented study is to show that this image, while not entirely false, requires significant qualification. For the question of technology in Rousseau's thought is far more complex, paradoxical, and dialectical than this stereotypical representation suggests. An 18th-century specialist teaching French literature and philosophy of that era at New York University, Anne Deneys-Tunney draws on numerous pages of his work dealing with machines, their positive role in education, the progress they enable, and the humanization of the world they generate, in order to shed light on Another Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Precautionary principle

This close and convincing reading allows us to grasp how much more balanced, and more interesting, Rousseau's position is than is commonly said. Far from being a fanatical and sectarian technophobe, he is a well-tempered technophile, a precursor of the precautionary principle, attentive to the potential harms of progress, yet by no means bent on cursing them always and everywhere. For he is subtle enough to understand that if technology is an evil, in the course of history and circumstances, this evil can be a good.

In his eyes, indeed, the union of nature and technology is possible and conducive to freedom. To those who might doubt this, we recommend turning in particular to this important passage cited by Anne Deneys-Tunney, in which Rousseau describes Switzerland: "One no longer feels as though one is traveling through deserts when one finds steeples among the pines, herds on the rocks, manufactories in abysses, workshops on torrents. This bizarre mixture has an indescribable animation, a liveliness that breathes freedom and well-being, and which will always make the country where it is found a spectacle unique of its kind, but made only for eyes that know how to see."

The lesson of this work is not only to confirm that Rousseau is a "man of paradoxes rather than prejudices." It is also to show that he is far more our contemporary than that of L'Encyclopédie. Aware that man can just as easily liberate himself as enslave himself in the world of machines, he outlines not a unilateral condemnation, but the horizon of an ethics, more relevant today than ever, that succeeds in protecting us from progress without stifling it.

ANOTHER JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU: THE PARADOX OF TECHNOLOGY by Anne Deneys-Tunney. PUF, "Fondements de la politique", 154 p., 16 €.
Roger-Pol Droit Article published in the edition of 18.06.10

This study belongs to the rich tradition of eighteenth-century French literary and philosophical scholarship, engaging closely with the legacy of the Enlightenment. The work examines how Jean-Jacques Rousseau anticipated modern debates surrounding technical innovation, ecological sustainability, and human autonomy. By re-evaluating canonical texts such as Emile and The Social Contract, the author challenges the simplistic view of Rousseau as a rigid technophobe and instead presents him as a nuanced thinker whose critique of unchecked progress remains strikingly relevant to contemporary ethical and environmental questions.

Researchers, students, and general readers interested in intellectual history, political philosophy, and the French Enlightenment will find this volume particularly illuminating. It offers valuable insights into how nineteenth- and twentieth-century interpretations of technology can be traced back to eighteenth-century paradoxes. The book helps readers navigate questions regarding the relationship between nature, morality, and industrial society, making it a useful resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Rousseau's philosophy and its unexpected connections to modern ecological thought.