The Demise of the Republic of Virtue—From Rousseau to Robespierre

Abstract

EDITORS’ ABSTRACT This article contains the preface, introduction, and epilogue of Zhu Xueqin’s influential book The Demise of the Republic of Virtue: From Rousseau to Robespierre (1994). In the preface, Zhu describes Chinese and international scholarship on Rousseau, his own intellectual formation as a member of the Cultural Revolution generation, and the overall purpose of the book. In the introduction, Zhu briefly outlines the transformation of medieval “theological politics” into modern “political theology,” or his central concern of the merger between moral idealism and the political state. Finally, in the epilogue, Zhu nevertheless still seeks to rescue Rousseau by arguing that history is created by both a priori and empirical forces and that a dialogue between deconstruction and construction is required. However, for “political theology” to end, boundaries have to be set to moral idealism and it needs to be disconnected from the political state.