ABSTRACT
A return to reading Rousseau when studying science and technology should not be mistaken with how he is often being (mis-)characterized as unapologetically optimistic in his descriptions of human nature, society and, by extension, science and technology. This is a problem and it also comprises the context of today's rhetoric on freedom to software, algorithms, data and information. At its extreme, Rousseau turns into an advocate of altruism and cooperation, either in terms of innovation and its potential or the prospects for a free society. Instead, Rousseau should be read in terms of a tragic conception of freedom, one that resembles 20th-century social theories wherein freedom is in trouble and wherein science and technology are a part of the problem. Freedom might be given in nature, famously “we're born free”; however, this is a position that has as its aim that the full extent of the tragedy is grasped. As a political theory, this is a tragedy that unfolds in terms of a relation of power and knowledge; empirically, as a method, it requires that we renew “how” we understand freedom, taking on the goal of understanding the type of chains that has us trapped.
