Posthumanist and New Materialist thought attempts to undo the supremacy and distinction of the human being through accounting for the agential capacities of the animal and material world. New Materialism in particular constructs a vision of a vital natural world in order to turn us away from humanism and toward a more holistic understanding of nature, and political actants. In this article, I argue that there can be a humanist new materialist position that sees the vitalism of the natural world (...) while maintaining the uniqueness of the human being. This position can be found in the natural science of the eighteenth century in the work of Georges-Louis LeClerc de Buffon and Charles Bonnet. Reminding ourselves of this alternative mode of thinking about a vital nature, and its vision of a self-regenerating human being in a vital and regenerative universe, is a path toward regenerating humanism itself in contemporary scholarship. (shrink)

The article argues that Rousseau's thought is unified by a non-materialistic, non-deterministic version of naturalism, according to which human beings are intrinsically good and intrinsically free, and at the same time moulded by their natural and social environment. Within that unity the article identifies a deep, creative tension between two competing visions of the best attainable form of human life: on the one hand a vision of a unified, integrated life , in which inner conflicts are at a minimum and (...) the goal is happiness; on the other hand a vision of a divided life whose goal is self-mastery. In support of this interpretation of Rousseau, the article subjects the readings of Cassirer and Strauss-Masters to a detailed critique. It concludes with a brief examination of Rousseau's intriguing claim that he would 'rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices'. (shrink)