Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life PDF Download

Author: Laurence D. Cooper
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271029889
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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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.

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

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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.

Author: Denise Schaeffer
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271064463
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
In Rousseau on Education, Freedom, and Judgment, Denise Schaeffer challenges the common view of Rousseau as primarily concerned with conditioning citizens’ passions in order to promote republican virtue and unreflective patriotism. Schaeffer argues that, to the contrary, Rousseau’s central concern is the problem of judgment and how to foster it on both the individual and political level in order to create the conditions for genuine self-rule. Offering a detailed commentary on Rousseau’s major work on education, Emile, and a wide-ranging analysis of the relationship between Emile and several of Rousseau’s other works, Schaeffer explores Rousseau’s understanding of what good judgment is, how it is learned, and why it is central to the achievement and preservation of human freedom. The model of Rousseauian citizenship that emerges from Schaeffer’s analysis is more dynamic and self-critical than is often recognized. This book demonstrates the importance of Rousseau’s contribution to our understanding of the faculty of judgment, and, more broadly, invites a critical reevaluation of Rousseau’s understanding of education, citizenship, and both individual and collective freedom.

Author: Louis Althusser
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784785571
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Althusser dissects the leading Enlightenment philosopher Althusser delivered these lectures on Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Inequality at the École normale supérieure in Paris in 1972. They are fascinating for two reasons. First, they gave rise to a new generation of Rousseau scholars, attentive not just to Rousseau's ideas, but also to those of his concepts that were buried beneath metaphors or fictional situations and characters. A new way of coming to terms with Rousseau's theoretical rigour, beneath his apparent reveries and sentimental flights of fancy, was here put to work. Second, we are now discovering that the 'late Althusser's' theses about aleatory materialism and the need to break with the strict determinism of theories of history in order to devise a new philosophy 'for Marx' were being worked out well before 1985 - in this reading of Rousseau dating from twelve years earlier, which introduces into Rousseau's text the ideas of the void, the accident, the take, and the necessity of contingency.

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 9781584657507
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
An exceptional anthology designed for courses on Rousseau, the history of philosophy, and women's studies

Author: Clifford Orwin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226638561
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Few thinkers have enjoyed so pervasive an influence as Rousseau, who originated dissatisfaction with modernity. By exploring polarities articulated by Rousseau—nature versus society, self versus other, community versus individual, and compassion versus competitiveness—these fourteen original essays show how his thought continues to shape our ways of talking, feeling, thinking, and complaining. The volume begins by taking up a central theme noted by the late Allan Bloom—Rousseau's critique of the bourgeois as the dominant modern human type and as a being fundamentally in contradiction, caught between the sentiments of nature and the demands of society. It then turns to Rousseau's crucial polarity of nature and society and to the later conceptions of history and culture it gave rise to. The third part surveys Rousseau's legacy in both domestic and international politics. Finally, the book examines Rousseau's contributions to the virtues that have become central to the current sensibility: community, sincerity, and compassion. Contributors include Allan Bloom, François Furet, Pierre Hassner, Christopher Kelly, Roger Masters, and Arthur Melzer.

Author: Mads Qvortrup
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719065811
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
This title presents an overview of Rousseau's work from a political science perspective. Was the great theorist of the French Revolution really a conservative? The text argues that the author of 'The Social Contract' was a constitutionalist closer to Montesquieu and Locke than to revolutionaries.

Author: David Lay Williams
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271045511
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
"In this sterling, deeply researched study, Williams explores how thinkers ranging from Hobbes to d'Holbach highlight various sets of ideas that Rousseau combated in developing his philosophical teaching. The account of Rousseau's predecessors who might be called Platonists is especially interesting, as is the account of those who qualify as materialists. Moreover, Williams provides a good overview of Rousseau's teaching, demonstrates a commendable grasp of the relevant secondary literature, and argues ably for the superiority of his own interpretations ... Clearly written and superbly organized, this book contributes much to Rousseau studies. An indispensable book for Rousseau scholars, this volume also will appeal to general readers and students at all levels."--C.E. Butterworth, CHOICE.

Author: Heinrich Meier
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022607403X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
Contents -- Preface -- Preface to the American Edition -- Note on Citations -- Translator's Note and Acknowledgments -- First Book -- I. The Philosopher among Nonphilosophers -- II. Faith -- III. Nature -- IV. Beisichselbstsein -- V. Politics -- VI. Love -- VII. Self-Knowledge -- Second Book -- Rousseau and the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar -- Name Index

Author: Matthew Simpson
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1847143199
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
Jean-Jacques Rousseau has a claim to be ranked above even Karl Marx as the political philosopher who has most influenced everyday life. His much-read philosophy of education alone would qualify him for a high place, but his political theory is even more important: decisions affecting millions of people were made based on the reading of certain lines of the Social Contract. Yet while politicians and scholars have studied this book for 250 years, almost no agreement exists on how to interpret its central concept: freedom. Rousseau's theory of freedom has led him to be called everything from the greatest prophet of individual liberty to the designer of the first totalitarian state. This book offers a new, unifying interpretation of the theory of freedom in the Social Contract. Simpson 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. Simpson's book not only helps us to understand one of the pre-eminent political minds of the 18th century, but also brings us into closer conversation with those he influenced, who have done so much to shape our world. And in light of the interest in contemporary contractualist philosophers like Rawls, Scanlon, and Gauthier, readers will find it worthwhile to return to the thinker who offers one of the most radical, profound, and insightful theories of the social contract ever devised.