LE3 .A278 2012

2012

Biro, Andrew

Acadia University

Master of Arts

Masters

Political Science

Politics

This thesis focuses on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s writings concerning individual-collective conflict—or societal discontent. Exploring their shared interest in language—as means of reconciling individualism with social unity—the second chapter explores perception, individual experience and, more generally, the foundational components of language that allow individuals to interact socially. The third chapter examines the way in which linguistic expression becomes, for both theorists, a socio-political utopianism as they attempt to marshal the unifying social potential within language. Building on this insight, the fourth chapter returns to the issue of societal discontent, highlighting the socio-political realities to which both theorists are attempting to respond. Finally, in the conclusion, it is argued that although neither theorist succeeds in reconciling their linguistic ideal with the problems they have identified, this failure reveals a politics of language—operating through both direct oppression and indirect repression—that has become implicated in societal discontent.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:250