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Rousseau's Platonic Enlightenment

Author: David Lay Williams

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2010-11-01

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780271045511

"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.

Rousseau's Social Contract

Author: David Lay Williams

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-01-13

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0521197554

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Rousseau's Social Contract: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text.

Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue

Author: James Delaney

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2006-09-15

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 1847144160

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau is an enigmatic figure in many ways. There is much debate about whether he was an advocate of the Enlightenment project or a critic of it. Sometimes Rousseau seems to be arguing against traditional values and hierarchies. But elsewhere he seems to be an enemy of progress altogether. This book explains Rousseau's true place in the Enlightenment by paying particular attention to his account of virtue. Virtue ethics is one of the main branches in moral philosophy, and its most famous advocate is Aristotle. Many recent philosophers have tried to revive virtue ethics, most notably Alasdair MacIntyre in his 1984 book, After Virtue. MacIntyre argues that the Enlightenment project was doomed to fail precisely because Enlightenment philosophers had discarded Aristotle. They do this by rejecting Aristotle's claim that all things are, by nature, directed towards some proper end. The enlightenment figures whom MacIntyre discusses at length in his critique are Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard. And while Rousseau is mentioned as an Enlightenment thinker, very little attention is paid to him. This book puts Rousseau's ethics into historical perspective, showing that Rousseau shares important characteristics with his contemporaries as well as with the tradition of Aristotle. The dichotomy set up by MacIntyre and others between the ethics of the ancient tradition and that of the Enlightenment is oversimplified. By taking a serious look at Rousseau's ethics, we can see that he forms a bridge between these two rich traditions in the history of Western philosophy.

Rousseau's Counter-Enlightenment

Author: Graeme Garrard

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 0791487431

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Arguing that the question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's relationship to the Enlightenment has been eclipsed and seriously distorted by his association with the French Revolution, Graeme Garrard presents the first book-length case that shows Rousseau as the pivotal figure in the emergence of Counter-Enlightenment thought. Viewed in the context in which he actually lived and wrote—from the middle of the eighteenth century to his death in 1778—it is apparent that Rousseau categorically rejected the Enlightenment "republic of letters" in favor of his own "republic of virtue." The philosophes, placing faith in reason and natural human sociability and subjecting religion to systematic criticism and doubt, naively minimized the deep tensions and complexities of collective life and the power disintegrative forces posed to social order. Rousseau believed that the ever precarious social order could only be achieved artificially, by manufacturing "sentiments of sociability," reshaping individuals to identify with common interests instead of their own selfish interests.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith

Author: Charles L Griswold

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1315436558

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith are giants of eighteenth century thought. The heated controversy provoked by their competing visions of human nature and society still resonates today. Smith himself reviewed Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, and his perceptive remarks raise an intriguing question: what would a conversation between these two great thinkers look like? In this outstanding book Charles Griswold analyzes, compares and evaluates some of the key ways in which Rousseau and Smith address what could be termed "the question of the self". Both thinkers discuss what we are by nature (in particular, whether we are sociable or not), who we have become, whether we can know ourselves or each other, how best to articulate the human condition, what it would mean to be free, and whether there is anything that can be done to remedy our deeply imperfect condition. In the course of examining their rich and contrasting views, Griswold puts Rousseau and Smith in dialogue by imagining what they might say in reply to one another. Griswold’s wide-ranging exploration includes discussion of issues such as narcissism, self-falsification, sympathy, the scope of philosophy, and the relation between liberty, religion and civic order. A superb exploration of two major philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: A Philosophical Encounter is essential reading for students and scholars of these two figures, eighteenth century philosophy, the Enlightenment, moral philosophy, and the history of ideas. It will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as political theory, economics, and religion.

The Autocritique of Enlightenment

Author: Mark Hulliung

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13:

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This text provides an analysis of the life and works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an area often overlooked in accounts of 18th-century heritage. Mark Hulliung restores Rousseau to his historical context, the world of the philosophes, and shows how he employed the arsenal of Voltaire, Diderot and others to launch a powerful attack on their vision of the Enlightenment.

The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau

Author: Patrick Riley

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-08-27

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 1139825623

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Universally regarded as the greatest French political theorist and philosopher of education of the Enlightenment, and probably the greatest French social theorist tout court, Rousseau was an important forerunner of the French Revolution, though his thought was too nuanced and subtle ever to serve as mere ideology. This 2001 volume systematically surveys the full range of Rousseau's activities in politics and education, psychology, anthropology, religion, music and theater.

Enlightenment Philosophy in a Nutshell

Author: Jane O'Grady

Publisher: Knowledge in a Nutshell

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9781788283724

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"...there is nothing elementary about O'Grady's primer. She pulls off the feat of writing a reliable and accessible introduction to modern philosophy that is also a meaningful contribution to the subject." - London Times Literary Supplement From Descartes' famous line 'I think therefore I am' to Kant's fascinating discussions of morality, the thinkers of the Enlightenment have helped to shape the modern world. Addressing such important subjects as the foundations of knowledge and the role of ethics, the theories of these philosophers continue to have great relevance to our lives. Ranging across Enlightenment thinking from Berkeley to Rousseau, Enlightenment Philosophy in a Nutshell explains important ideas such as Locke's ideas of primary and secondary qualities, Kant's moral rationalism, and Hume's inductive reasoning. Filled with helpful diagrams and simple summaries of complex theories, this essential introduction brings the great ideas of the past to everyone.

Primal Philosophy

Author: Lucas Fain

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-01-29

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1538146193

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Primal Philosophy: Rousseau with Laplanche presents the first comprehensive study of Rousseau’s thought on the possibility of philosophy and the responsibility of the philosopher. Through a close reading of texts from throughout Rousseau’s entire corpus, together with inspiration from Jean Laplanche’s seminal work on the Freudian theory of seduction, this book positions Rousseau within a contemporary debate involving Theodor Adorno and Alain Badiou on the fate of philosophy after Heidegger. In confrontation with the radical subordination of ethics to ontology, which is characteristic of Cartesian thought and its culmination in Heidegger’s philosophical legacy, the reading of Rousseau with Laplanche elaborates the rootedness of philosophy in a process of primal seduction, which opens a way to rethink the meaning of a genuine first philosophy, not as the study of being qua being in the tradition initiated by Aristotle, but as primal philosophy, the study of the genesis of philosophy itself. The rootedness of philosophy in a process of primal seduction then reveals the primal responsibility of the philosopher—a responsibility for human happiness found in the possibility of philosophy itself.

The Challenge of Rousseau

Author: Eve Grace

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 1107018285

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The essays in this volume focus on Rousseau's genuine yet undervalued stature as a philosopher.