Lying in Rousseau

between memory, language, and the desire for truth

Abstract

This article proposes an analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's autobiographical production, focusing on The Confessions and Reveries of the Solitary Walker, to uncover the complex itinerary between truth and falsehood. The core of the investigation lies in the desire for truth and the search for absolute sincerity, or transparency, which Rousseau adopts as his life motto (Vitam Impendere Vero). However, this ideal of sincerity is challenged due to the limits imposed by memory and language. Memory does not act merely as an archive, but as an interpretive device that reinterprets the past, revealing the instability of the self and the circularity of the narrative. Concurrently, language, initially a direct expression of feeling, is transformed into an artifice by social convention, enabling dissimulation and, consequently, lying. This tension is central to the crisis of sincerity. Focusing on the Fourth Walk of the Reveries, the text demonstrates that Rousseau shifts the problem of veracity to the domain of ethics and intention. Lying is defined as an act of injustice, intrinsically linked to the intention to harm. In contrast, Rousseau conceptualizes the category of fiction, seen as a harmless statement, morally permissible due to the absence of damage or malicious intent. It is concluded that, for Rousseau, truth acquires an essentially moral foundation, equating itself with justice and guided by the dictates of conscience. The autobiographical project, by exposing the struggle against the traps of memory and language, becomes a philosophical procedure that seeks a deeper, felt truth, requiring a permanent self-examination and a sensitivity to social responsibility.