Rousseau's Dilemmas. A critical reading of The Social Contract [Os Dilemas de Rousseau. Uma leitura crítica d'O contrato social]

The Second Discourse ends in a tone of negative critique, without offering a set of proposals that could contribute to transform the actual society in an ideal, although realistic, one. On the other hand, The Social Contract offers the grounds for this project; a project, which is not only political but mainly a project of transformation of human nature through politics, institutions and education. The concept of popular sovereignty plays a key role in this task: it transforms «the people» into the sovereign historical subject; and it does so by unfolding in the concept of General will. Through this, Rousseau is temporarily capable of conciliating the project of recovery of human freedom with the project of a well-ordered society where the common good becomes the regulative ideal. However, Rousseau lives in a permanent dilemma: the abyss between what i tis and what it should be. The politics of immanence converts itself in a politics of dualism, incarnated in the figure of the Legislator