Rousseau's Dog

Rousseau's Dog

Author: David Edmonds

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2011-06-28

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0062037617

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In 1766 philosopher, novelist, composer, and political provocateur Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a fugitive, decried by his enemies as a dangerous madman. Meanwhile David Hume—now recognized as the foremost philosopher in the English language—was being universally lauded as a paragon of decency. And so Rousseau came to England with his beloved dog, Sultan, and willingly took refuge with his more respected counterpart. But within months, the exile was loudly accusing his benefactor of plotting to dishonor him—which prompted a most uncharacteristically violent response from Hume. And so began a remarkable war of words and actions that ensnared many of the leading figures in British and French society, and became the talk of intellectual Europe. Rousseau's Dog is the fascinating true story of the bitter and very public quarrel that turned the Age of Enlightenment's two most influential thinkers into deadliest of foes—a most human tale of compassion, treachery, anger, and revenge; of celebrity and its price; of shameless spin; of destroyed reputations and shattered friendships.


Reading Rousseau in the Nuclear Age

Reading Rousseau in the Nuclear Age

Author: Grace G. Roosevelt

Publisher:

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 9780877226796

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For more than two centuries, the political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau have helped shape many different responses to historical experience. While today's readers are aware of Rousseau's contemporary significance, his writings on war and peace have been almost completely ignored. This book offers a fresh interpretation of two of Rousseau's little-known works: his unfinished "The State of War" and his summary and critique of the Abbe de Saint-Pierre's Project for Perpetual Peace. Starting with an account of her discovery of the original page sequence of Rousseau's manuscript on "The State of War," Grace G. Roosevelt explores his theory of international conflict and explains his alternative approaches to the problem of securing peace. She brings out the important connections between Rousseau's theory of international politics and his principles of education, arguing throughout for the continuing relevance of his ideas. Roosevelt's main contention is that, when studied in relation to his works on politics and education, Rousseau's writings on war and peace provide the modern reader with a realistic analysis of the war system and a normative vision of the possibilities for peace. In discussing his principles of education, Roosevelt suggests that Rousseau's writings challenge us to confront the question of whether educational systems should aim to create citizens of a particular state or citizens of the world. The book includes full translations, by the author, of Rousseau's unpublished manuscript on "The State of War" and of his forty-page "Summary" and "Critique" of the Project for Perpetual Peace. Author note: Grace G. Roosevelt is Adjunct Assistant Professor of the Humanities in the General Studies Program at New York University.


The Philosophers' Quarrel

The Philosophers' Quarrel

Author: Robert Zaretsky

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0300164289

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The dramatic collapse of the friendship between Rousseau and Hume, in the context of their grand intellectual quest to conquer the limits of human understanding. The rise and spectacular fall of the friendship between the two great philosophers of the eighteenth century, barely six months after they first met, reverberated on both sides of the Channel. As the relationship between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume unraveled, a volley of rancorous letters was fired off, then quickly published and devoured by aristocrats, intellectuals, and common readers alike. Everyone took sides in this momentous dispute between the greatest of Enlightenment thinkers. In this lively and revealing book, Robert Zaretsky and John T. Scott explore the unfolding rift between Rousseau and Hume. The authors are particularly fascinated by the connection between the thinkers' lives and thought, especially the way that the failure of each to understand the other--and himself--illuminates the limits of human understanding. In addition, they situate the philosophers' quarrel in the social, political, and intellectual milieu that informed their actions, as well as the actions of the other participants in the dispute, such as James Boswell, Adam Smith, and Voltaire. By examining the conflict through the prism of each philosopher's contribution to Western thought, Zaretsky and Scott reveal the implications for the two men as individuals and philosophers as well as for the contemporary world.


European Intellectual History from Rousseau to Nietzsche

European Intellectual History from Rousseau to Nietzsche

Author: Frank M. Turner

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2015-02-12

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0300212917

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One of the most distinguished cultural and intellectual historians of our time, Frank Turner taught a landmark Yale University lecture course on European intellectual history that drew scores of students over many years. His lectures—lucid, accessible, beautifully written, and delivered with a notable lack of jargon—distilled modern European history from the Enlightenment to the dawn of the twentieth century and conveyed the turbulence of a rapidly changing era in European history through its ideas and leading figures. Richard A. Lofthouse, one of Turner’s former students, has now edited the lectures into a single volume that outlines the thoughts of a great historian on the forging of modern European ideas. Moreover, it offers a fine example of how intellectual history should be taught: rooted firmly in historical and biographical evidence.


A Discourse on Inequality

A Discourse on Inequality

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2016-04-26

Total Pages: 89

ISBN-13: 150403547X

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A fascinating examination of the relationship between civilization and inequality from one of history’s greatest minds The first man to erect a fence around a piece of land and declare it his own founded civil society—and doomed mankind to millennia of war and famine. The dawn of modern civilization, argues Jean-Jacques Rousseau in this essential treatise on human nature, was also the beginning of inequality. One of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, Rousseau based his work in compassion for his fellow man. The great crime of despotism, he believed, was the raising of the cruel above the weak. In this landmark text, he spells out the antidote for man’s ills: a compassionate revolution to pull up the fences and restore the balance of mankind. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.


The Reveries of the Solitary Walker

The Reveries of the Solitary Walker

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780872201620

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An exploration of the soul in the form of a final meditation on self-understanding and isolation.


The Legacy of Rousseau

The Legacy of Rousseau

Author: Clifford Orwin

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1997-03-29

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0226638561

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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.