The state of nature that may have never existed

Rousseau in defense of a conjectural method

Abstract

This paper aims to explain the relationship between the rousseaunian state of nature and the conjectural method, which, according to Rousseau’s allegations, would be the only way to make this state of humankind explicit, a state which may only have existed in the past. Thus, we seek to answer to the question: how could a conjectural method help us to reach the man of nature? To this purpose, we appropriate the hypothesis developed by the author, who seeks to dismiss, at the same time, the “facts” forged by christian tradition and the biases sustained by philosophers who appropriated characteristics of the civil man to write about the man of nature. On Discourse upon the origin and the foundation of the inequality among mankind, Rousseau seeks to undress the man of their morals, thus to identify what believes to be the man in their state of nature. According to the author, this would be the only way to verify the foundation of the human vices. For that work, Rousseau claims that only a conjectural method could evince a state that no longer exists, and thus, couldn’t be recognized by facts.