Rousseau's Social Contract

Rousseau's Social Contract PDF Author: David Lay Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107511607
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Get Book Here

Book Description
If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it was banished from France. Soon thereafter, Rousseau fled to Geneva, where he saw the book burned in public. At the same time, many of his contemporaries, such as Kant, considered Rousseau to be 'the Newton of the moral world', as he was the first philosopher to draw attention to the basic dignity of human nature. The Social Contract has never ceased to be read and debated in the 250 years since its publication. Rousseau's Social Contract: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text. David Lay Williams offers readers a chapter-by-chapter reading of the Social Contract, squarely confronting these interpretive obstacles. The book also features a special extended appendix dedicated to outlining Rousseau's famous conception of the general will, which has been the object of controversy since the Social Contract's publication in 1762.

Rousseau's Social Contract

Rousseau's Social Contract PDF Author: David Lay Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107511607
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Get Book Here

Book Description
If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it was banished from France. Soon thereafter, Rousseau fled to Geneva, where he saw the book burned in public. At the same time, many of his contemporaries, such as Kant, considered Rousseau to be 'the Newton of the moral world', as he was the first philosopher to draw attention to the basic dignity of human nature. The Social Contract has never ceased to be read and debated in the 250 years since its publication. Rousseau's Social Contract: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text. David Lay Williams offers readers a chapter-by-chapter reading of the Social Contract, squarely confronting these interpretive obstacles. The book also features a special extended appendix dedicated to outlining Rousseau's famous conception of the general will, which has been the object of controversy since the Social Contract's publication in 1762.

Rousseau

Rousseau PDF Author: Joshua Cohen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199581495
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Get Book Here

Book Description
Joshua Cohen explains how the values of freedom, equality, and community all work together as parts of the democratic ideal expressed in Rousseau's conception of the 'society of the general will'. He also explores Rousseau's anti-Augustinian and anti-Hobbesian ideas that we are naturally good.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau PDF Author: Leopold Damrosch
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618446964
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 586

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reconstructs the life of the French literary genius whose writing changed opinions and fueled fierce debate on both sides of the Atlantic during the period of the American and French revolutions.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Human nature and history

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Human nature and history PDF Author: John T. Scott
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415350853
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Get Book Here

Book Description
Bringing together critical assessments of the broad range of Rousseau's thought, with a particular emphasis on his political theory, this systematic collection is an essential resource for both student and scholar.

Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life

Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life PDF Author: Laurence D. Cooper
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271029889
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
The rise of modern science created a crisis for Western moral and political philosophy, which had theretofore relied either on Christian theology or Aristotelian natural teleology as guarantors of an objective standard for &"the good life.&" This book examines Rousseau's effort to show how and why, despite this challenge from science (which he himself intensified by equating our subhuman origins with our natural state), nature can remain a standard for human behavior. While recognizing an original goodness in human being in the state of nature, Rousseau knew this to be too low a standard and promoted the idea of &"the natural man living in the state of society,&" notably in Emile. Laurence Cooper shows how, for Rousseau, conscience&—understood as the &"love of order&"&—functions as the agent whereby simple savage sentiment is sublimated into a more refined &"civilized naturalness&" to which all people can aspire.

The Sexual Politics of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Sexual Politics of Jean-Jacques Rousseau PDF Author: Joel Schwartz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226742245
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book Here

Book Description
Joel Schwartz presents the first systematic treatment of Rousseau's understanding of the political importance of women, sexuality, and the family. Using both Rousseau's lesser-known literary works and such major writings as Emile, Julie, and The Second Discourse, he offers an original and provocative presentation of Rousseau's argument. To read Rousseau, Schwartz believes, is to enter into a profound discourse about the meaning of sexual equality and the opportunities, pitfalls, costs, and benefits that sexual relationships bestow and impose on us all. His own thoughtful reading of Rousseau opens up fresh perspectives on political philosophy and the history of sexual, masculine, and feminine psychology.

Rousseau, Nietzsche, and the Image of the Human

Rousseau, Nietzsche, and the Image of the Human PDF Author: Paul Franco
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022680030X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Franco explores the relationship between Nietzsche and Rousseau and their critique of modern life. Franco begins by arguing that 'among philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche are perhaps the two most influential explorers and shapers of the moral and cultural imagination of late modernity.' And yet Nietzsche was often highly critical of Rousseau. Indeed, their critiques of modern life differ in important respects. Rousseau focused on the growing political and economic inequality in modern society and proposed a more egalitarian politics. Nietzsche decried the inability of society to take account of the exceptional individual and found Rousseau's political ideas wrong-headed"--Publisher marketing.

Rousseau's Theory of Freedom

Rousseau's Theory of Freedom PDF Author: Matthew Simpson
Publisher: Continuum
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Get Book Here

Book Description
Offers an interpretation of the theory of freedom in the Social Contract. The author gives a careful analysis of Rousseau's theory of the social pact, and then examines the kinds of freedom that it brings about, showing how Rousseau's individualist and collectivist aspects fit into a larger and logically coherent theory of human liberty.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau PDF Author: Leopold Damrosch
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618872022
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 580

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reconstructs the life of the French literary genius whose writing changed opinions and fueled fierce debate on both sides of the Atlantic during the period of the American and French revolutions.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Political principles and institutions

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Political principles and institutions PDF Author: John T. Scott
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415350860
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Get Book Here

Book Description
Bringing together critical assessments of the broad range of Rousseau's thought, with a particular emphasis on his political theory, this systematic collection is an essential resource for both student and scholar.