Engaging with Rousseau

Engaging with Rousseau PDF Author: Avi Lifschitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316720926
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been cast as a champion of Enlightenment and a beacon of Romanticism, a father figure of radical revolutionaries and totalitarian dictators alike, an inventor of the modern notion of the self, and an advocate of stern ancient republicanism. Engaging with Rousseau treats his writings as an enduring topic of debate, examining the diverse responses they have attracted from the Enlightenment to the present. Such notions as the general will were, for example, refracted through very different prisms during the struggle for independence in Latin America and in social conflicts in Eastern Europe, or modified by thinkers from Kant to contemporary political theorists. Beyond Rousseau's ideas, his public image too travelled around the world. This book examines engagement with Rousseau's works as well as with his self-fashioning; especially in turbulent times, his defiant public identity and his call for regeneration were admired or despised by intellectuals and political agents.

Engaging with Rousseau

Engaging with Rousseau PDF Author: Avi Lifschitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316720926
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book Here

Book Description
Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been cast as a champion of Enlightenment and a beacon of Romanticism, a father figure of radical revolutionaries and totalitarian dictators alike, an inventor of the modern notion of the self, and an advocate of stern ancient republicanism. Engaging with Rousseau treats his writings as an enduring topic of debate, examining the diverse responses they have attracted from the Enlightenment to the present. Such notions as the general will were, for example, refracted through very different prisms during the struggle for independence in Latin America and in social conflicts in Eastern Europe, or modified by thinkers from Kant to contemporary political theorists. Beyond Rousseau's ideas, his public image too travelled around the world. This book examines engagement with Rousseau's works as well as with his self-fashioning; especially in turbulent times, his defiant public identity and his call for regeneration were admired or despised by intellectuals and political agents.

Engaging with Rousseau: Reaction and Interpretation from the Eighteenth Century to the Present

Engaging with Rousseau: Reaction and Interpretation from the Eighteenth Century to the Present PDF Author: Avi Lifschitz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781316726327
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
An examination of responses to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's works and self-fashioned image from the Enlightenment onwards across Europe and the Americas.

Life Forms in the Thinking of the Long Eighteenth Century

Life Forms in the Thinking of the Long Eighteenth Century PDF Author: Keith Michael Baker
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442630248
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Life Forms in the Thinking of the Long Eighteenth Century is a unique reappraisal of Enlightenment thought on nature, biology, and the organic world.

Languages of Reform in the Eighteenth Century

Languages of Reform in the Eighteenth Century PDF Author: Susan Richter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000740528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
Societies perceive "Reform" or "Reforms" as substantial changes and significant breaks which must be well-justified. The Enlightenment brought forth the idea that the future was uncertain and could be shaped by human beings. This gave the concept of reform a new character and new fields of application. Those who sought support for their plans and actions needed to reflect, develop new arguments, and offer new reasons to address an anonymous public. This book aims to compile these changes under the heuristic term of "languages of reform." It analyzes the structures of communication regarding reforms in the 18th century through a wide variety of topics.

Rousseau’s Republicanism

Rousseau’s Republicanism PDF Author: Megan K. Dyer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666918385
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Reading Rousseau as a republican thinker might seem almost too obvious a proposition. All the same, the Genevan is often struck from accounts of modern republicanism given by those associated with the revival of republican thought. At the root of this omission is perhaps the greatest puzzle of Rousseau’s republicanism is that it demands his readers untangle the omission. In bringing the republic’s sovereign power into the Enlightenment, Rousseau pairs it both with the premise of natural liberty and equality and also with an account of man singularly unsuited to realizing the rightful consequences of this shared nature. Looking to both major works and lesser-known writings, this book demonstrates that, in the face of human finitude and the formidable demands of right, Rousseau crafts a robust yet judicious account of the republic. Through comparison with various republican lineages, its chapters explore Rousseau’s engagement with leading moral and political problems that have defined and redefined republicanism: attaining virtue, preserving liberty, sustaining the social order, orienting persons toward the common good, and having the law rule over men. The goods of civil association are always precarious, yet Rousseau nonetheless recognizes in human community an answer to the great problems of his thought—those of inequality, unhappiness, and unfreedom.

Cambridge Companion to Rousseau's Social Contract

Cambridge Companion to Rousseau's Social Contract PDF Author: David Lay Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108839304
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
What is freedom? What is equality? And what is sovereignty? A foundational text of modern political philosophy, Rousseau's Social Contract has generated much debate and exerted extraordinary influence not only on political thought, but also modern political history, by way of the French Revolution and other political events, ideals, and practices. The Social Contract is regularly studied in undergraduate courses of philosophy, political thought, and modern intellectual history, as well as being the subject of graduate seminars in numerous disciplines. The book inspires an ongoing flow of scholarly articles and monographs. Few texts have offered more influential and important answers to research questions than Rousseau's Social Contract, and in this new Cambridge Companion, a multidisciplinary team of contributors provides new ways to navigate this masterpiece of political philosophy- and its animating questions.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau PDF Author: Michael Sonenscher
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004420339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
This is a book about the political thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Its aim is to explain why, for Rousseau, thinking about politics – whether as democratic sovereignty, representative government, institutionalised power, imaginative vision or a moment of decision – lay at the heart of what he called his “grand, sad system.” This book tracks the gradual emergence of the various components of that system and describes the connections between them. The result is a new and fresh interpretation of one of Europe’s most famous political thinkers, showing why Rousseau can be seen as one of the first theorists of the modern concept of civil society and a key source of the problematic modern idea of a federal system.

Rousseau

Rousseau PDF Author: Céline Spector
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509516506
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of the most controversial philosophers of the eighteenth century, and his groundbreaking work still provokes heated debate in contemporary political theory. In this book, Céline Spector, one of the world’s foremost experts on Rousseau’s thought, provides an accessible introduction to his moral, social and political theory. She explores the themes and central concepts of his thought, ranging from the state of nature, the social contract and the general will to natural and political freedom, religion and education. She combines a skilful exposition of Rousseau as a ‘man of paradoxes’ with a discussion of his often-overlooked ideas on knowledge, political economy and international relations. The book traces both the overall unity and the significant changes in Rousseau’s philosophy, accounting for its complexity and for the importance of its legacy. It will be essential reading for scholars, students and general readers interested in the Enlightenment and more broadly in the history of modern political thought and philosophy.

Mandeville’s Fable

Mandeville’s Fable PDF Author: Robin Douglass
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691224692
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Why we should take Bernard Mandeville seriously as a philosopher Bernard Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees outraged its eighteenth-century audience by proclaiming that private vices lead to public prosperity. Today the work is best known as an early iteration of laissez-faire capitalism. In this book, Robin Douglass looks beyond the notoriety of Mandeville’s great work to reclaim its status as one of the most incisive philosophical studies of human nature and the origin of society in the Enlightenment era. Focusing on Mandeville’s moral, social, and political ideas, Douglass offers a revelatory account of why we should take Mandeville seriously as a philosopher. Douglass expertly reconstructs Mandeville’s theory of how self-centred individuals, who care for their reputation and social standing above all else, could live peacefully together in large societies. Pride and shame are the principal motives of human behaviour, on this account, with a large dose of hypocrisy and self-deception lying behind our moral practices. In his analysis, Douglass attends closely to the changes between different editions of the Fable; considers Mandeville’s arguments in light of objections and rival accounts from other eighteenth-century philosophers, including Shaftesbury, Hume, and Smith; and draws on more recent findings from social psychology. With this detailed and original reassessment of Mandeville’s philosophy, Douglass shows how The Fable of the Bees—by shining a light on the dark side of human nature—has the power to unsettle readers even today.

Commerce and Peace in the Enlightenment

Commerce and Peace in the Enlightenment PDF Author: Béla Kapossy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108267742
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
For many Enlightenment thinkers, discerning the relationship between commerce and peace was the central issue of modern politics. The logic of commerce seemed to require European states and empires to learn how to behave in more peaceful, self-limiting ways. However, as the fate of nations came to depend on the flux of markets, it became difficult to see how their race for prosperity could ever be fully disentangled from their struggle for power. On the contrary, it became easy to see how this entanglement could produce catastrophic results. This volume showcases the variety and the depth of approaches to economic rivalry and the rise of public finance that characterized Enlightenment discussions of international politics. It presents a fundamental reassessment of these debates about 'perpetual peace' and their legacy in the history of political thought.