Rousseau, Durkheim and the Problem of Passions 
(18th Century European Thought, Helsinki 1.–4.9.2004 – Tiina Arppe)

A. The general frame and background of the problem

– The larger context of this little lecture is a research I’m working on in the University of Helsinki, concerning the nature/culture -dichotomy in certain texts of Durkheim and of Lévi-Strauss. I try to approach this problem through two major philosophical figures that have inspired Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss alike, namely Rousseau and Kant. The wider question in this context concerns the relationship between the affective and the transcendental: what in my opinion brings Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss together – despite the differences in their general explicative orientation (genetic vs. structural explanation) – is their tendency to identify the social or the cultural with the transcendental whereas the natural (which constitutes the “accursed part” of the couple) is identified with the affective. This is the analytical, the thematic or the structural part of the problem 
– There is also a historical part which is given by an observation and a hypothesis I made thereafter about a change that occurred during the late 18th and the early 19th century in the theoretical discourse concerning human passions. To put it roughly, the former metaphysical and philosophical discourse concerning passions is transformed into a discourse drawing its inspiration from natural sciences – the affective element of human existence is no more conceptualized as “passions”, but as “energies”, “currents”, “forces” and “affects”, that is, as quantities which are, at least in principle, measurable and objectifiable – or to put in Durkheim’s words, which can be treated as “things”. 
– What is at stake, in a more general sense, is the status of affectivity in human existence, and in this case, in human sociality
– To present things very schematically, in the history of social philosophy this affective “surplus” has been thought of in two different modes: 1) as sentiments (which are mediated by reason, are more stable in their nature and usually related to the Good – f.inst. the “collective sentiments” of Durkheim) 2) as passions (which are seen as an obscure and irrational “power” invading the rational subject from the exterior and usually related to the Evil – the hobbesian force driving man against man)
– In the following I’ll try to elucidate the analytical or the thematic part of this problem by connecting the Durkheimian theory of collective effervescence (as it is presented in Les Formes Élémentaires de la Vie Religieuse) to the Rousseauist theory of passions (especially in the form it is represented in Essai sur l’Origine des Langues).
– According to my hypothesis this passionate (savage) element has a central role in the birth of the durkheimian (‘scientific’) sociology in the end of the 19th century – its impact is visible in several domains of the Durkheimian sociology, but here I’ll only concentrate on one of them, namely the theory of the genesis of the symbolic and of the society – because it’s here, in my opinion, that the influence of Rousseau on Durkheim is the strongest

B. The role of passions in the genesis of the symbolic and the society in Durkheim and Rousseau

– According to Rousseau passions are the origin of language and the social bond. Passions are not reducible to physical needs – on the contrary, they constitute an affective surplus which distinguishes man’s life from the animal existence. Passions are part of nature, but only of human nature.
– But even if the source of passions is the human sensibility (that is, nature) it is imagination that determines their inclination. And imagination only really begins to function in society (the first paradox: on one hand passions constitute the origin of society, on the other hand they can only properly function in society). But the problem is that in society imagination always functions too much – always in excess. The physical proximity that society provides nourishes imagination in an unhealthy manner, in a way which destroys the original (“natural”) equilibrium between the desires and the capacities of man (the birth of comparisons, competitions and of envy). The consequence of this breakdown is a sort of frenzy of passions, their uncontrollable multiplication. It is this frenzy which Rousseau sees as the origin of the misery of mankind – and which leads to the Hobbesian war of man against man that can only be stopped by means of the social contract
– It is this effervescence destroying equilibrium that Durkheim also emphasizes in his interpretation of Du Contrat Social of Rousseau – Durkheim doesn’t use the word ‘passion’ in his own theory – instead of passions he talks about ‘effervescence’ and ‘overexcitement’. But basically it is the same phenomenon: that which overflows, which refuses to stay inside the given limits and the effervescence of which is difficult, if not impossible to control
– This savage or “passionate” element plays a key role in the Durkheimian theory of religion. In Les Formes Élémentaires de la Vie Religieuse Durkheim makes up a mythical primitive scene – on this scene the society and the symbolic system emerge from the savage, amorphous effervescence of the primitive group. The interesting point is that we find a very similar scene from the Essai sur l’Origine des Langues of Rousseau (I cannot go into a detailed description of this scene in detail, because time is short – suffice it to say that it is a festive scene, a feast productive of society). What’s essential in this context is the fact that on both of these scenes the symbolic system is produced by a force, an energy (which the originary or the first language expresses metonymically). 
– It is precisely this force, at once moral and physical, which attaches man to nature, but which at the same time separates him from it. Society that both theorists see as a necessary condition of morality constitutes a reality which doesn’t belong to the same order as nature. This is what they say. But the situation is more complicated than that. 

C. Ambivalence of “Society” and of “Nature” (Durkheim and Rousseau)

– Both of these concepts are ambivalent in both of these authors but not in the similar manner: 1) For Rousseau the a) society is, on one hand, the source of the human degeneracy (because it leads to the frenzy of passions and to belligerent violence); but on the other hand society is also the source of the human sanctity – it is the condition for the actualisation/realisation of all the potencies latent in human nature; the condition also for the realisation of liberty (which, for Rousseau, constitutes the most authentic nature of man). In this sense the society represents the real/the authentic order which transcends the natural causality and subordinates it to the kingdom of values (or to God). This is precisely what happens with the social contract.
– But for Rousseau b) nature is also, in the end, a bastion of the divine order (a guarantee of moral authenticity which never deceives – il faut écouter la voix de la nature, Rousseau never ceases to repeat this). Consequently, the surpassing of nature doesn’t really mean passing to a reality which would be radically different or incommensurate. This surpassing is rather the lot, the destiny of man, the burden of liberty imposed on him by God; and liberty, for its part, is submitted to a much more intimate necessity than the law of nature, namely the voice of conscience which expresses precisely the transcendence of man in relation to nature.
– 2) Now for a positivist who has abandoned his God the situation is complicated yet in another way. Durkheim never ceases to repeat that a) the society, despite of its reality and objectivity (its quasi natural “thingness”), is at the same time something that adds itself (se surajoute) to the natural causality. It is the reality regenerated, “transfigured” by the symbolic – the symbolic which “surpasses” and sublimates it, transforms it into a moral order. But be it as it may, the source of the symbolic is the natural (and not the divine). Hence the society is at the same time a natural and a transcendental entity: “something” that in and from the nature adds itself to this very nature – to it and above it. Something that is more elevated than the sensible/perceptible nature. Something that literally transfigures the profane night of the “individual spontaneities”. In this way society replaces both nature (society as “object” or “force”) and God (society as the symbolic order). 
– However, it must be emphasized that in Durkheim’s theory b) nature is by no means merely the causal realm which would be inhabited by neutral “facts”. The Durkheimian nature carries in its womb an “accursed” part – if I may put it so – an excessive and extravagant aspect: this is precisely the entire “passionate” and “effervescent”, “energetic” side of nature that Durkheim uses in order to generate the symbolic and the society. Only after this orgiastic act of conception is over the passionate energy becomes dangerous – it begins to represent everything which in the human existence is impure or suspect from the point of view of the so called “scientific” sociology – “nature” becomes the Durkheimian metaphor for the individual existence at the mercy of incontrollable impulses and animal instincts – the opposite pole of which is, of course, the collective energy mediated and transfigured by the social existence
– And yet, Durkheim cannot do without it – even the modern society has to be able to stay in contact with this “effervescent” element in order to avoid succumbing to anomy. In society there is a continuous play of equilibrium between excess and lack, between the violence caused by the overabundance of vital energy and the anemia caused by the lack of vitality). What is at stake is the good/profitable use and the right dosage of passions.

In Conclusion (perhaps a couple of points) 

– 1) Whereas the transcendence, in Rousseau’s theory, is still governed by God, in Durkheim’s theory its centre is the Society. And it is precisely this instance that Durkheim seeks to sanctify with a fervour that’s nearly religious. For Durkheim the Society incarnates the metaphysical Good – in the same manner as Nature and ultimately God incarnate it for Rousseau. 2) Durkheim’s ambition is to find the “natural laws” governing society. The problem is that he wants to sanctify them at the same time, he wants to find the same type of foundation for the Social  that Rousseau had found for the Political Society. 3) We often hear that the 19th century killed God. But what is left unsaid – unthought, perhaps – is the fact that with God they also killed Devil. When the transcendental guarantee of the Good is displaced, so is also the radical Evil. This is precisely what happens between Rousseau and Durkheim: the metaphysical “passions” that so intrigued the philosophers, the doctors and the priests during the 17th and the 18th centuries are metamorphosed into “affects” and “forces” of the sociologists, the psychologists, the psychoanalysts and the criminologists of the 19th century – all these new disciplines the ultimate aim of which is to manage, to govern this formely “dark” side of man as economically and rationally as possible – in short, to find a profitable use for the Evil, to objectify it, to bring it down to earth…