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

Published: 2021-12

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0271029889

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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.

Rousseau

Rousseau PDF

Author: Joshua Cohen

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2010-02-25

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0199581495

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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

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 586

ISBN-13: 9780618446964

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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: Paradoxes and interpretations

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Paradoxes and interpretations PDF

Author: John T. Scott

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9780415350846

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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.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau PDF

Author: James R. Norton

Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc

Published: 2005-12-15

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13: 9781404204225

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Highlights the life and accomplishments of the Swiss philospher and musician who contributed to the Enlightenment.

The Confessions

The Confessions PDF

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 674

ISBN-13: 9781853264658

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This work is a frank treatment of Rousseau's sexual and intellectual development. It offers a model for the reflective life: the solitary, uncompromising individual; the enemy of servitude and habit; and the selfish egoist who dedicates himself to a particular ideal.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau PDF

Author: Tracy B. Strong

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2002-04-08

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1461665612

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Rousseau is most often read either as a theorist of individual authenticity or as a communitarian. In this book, he is neither. Instead, Rousseau is understood as a theorist of the common person. In Strong's understanding, Rousseau's use of 'common' always refers both to that which is common and to that which is ordinary, vulgar, everyday. For Strong, Rousseau resonates with Kant, Hegel, and Marx, but he is more modern like Emerson, Nietzsche, Eittegenstein, and Heidegger. Rousseau's democratic individual is an ordinary self, paradoxically multiple and not singular. In the course of exploring this contention, Strong examines Rousseau's fear of authorship (though not of authority), his understanding of the human, his attempt to overcome the scandal that relativism posed for politics, and the political importance of sexuality.

The Essential Rousseau

The Essential Rousseau PDF

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1974-04-01

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0452010314

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With splendid new translations, these four major works offer a superlative introduction to a great social philosopher whose ideas helped spark a revolution that has still not ended. Can individual freedom and social stability be reconciled? What is the function of government? What are the benefits and liabilities of civilization? What is the original nature of man, and how can he most fully realize his potential? These were the questions that Jean-Jacques Rousseau investigated in works that helped set the stage for the French Revolution and have since stood as eloquent expressions of revolutionary views, not only in politics but also in such areas as personal lifestyles and educational practices. Rousseau’s concepts of the natural goodness of man, the corrupting influence of social institutions, and the right and the power of the people to overthrow their oppressors and create new and more responsive forms of government and society are as richly relevant today as they were in eighteenth-century France. Includes: The Social Contract Discourse on Inequality Discourse on the Arts and Sciences “The Creed of a Savoyard Priest” (from Emile)