ABSTRACT
This essay explores how Rousseau’s and Tocqueville’s respective assumptions about God and Providence give shape to many different aspects of their respective bodies of writing. Far from being a reflection or projection of their political-philosophical aspirations, these religious and metaphysical commitments posit very different kinds of relations and distances between God and the world and generate distinct methods of writing and enquiry – as well as ways of thinking about truth and justice – throughout their writings.
