Rousseau's God
Rousseau's God

Author: John T. Scott

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2023-04-18

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0226825493

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A landmark study of Rousseau’s theological and religious thought. John T. Scott offers a comprehensive interpretation of Rousseau’s theological and religious thought, both in its own right and in relation to Rousseau’s broader oeuvre. In chapters focused on different key writings, Scott reveals recurrent themes in Rousseau’s views on the subject and traces their evolution over time. He shows that two concepts—truth and utility—are integral to Rousseau’s writings on religion. Doing so helps to explain some of Rousseau’s disagreements with his contemporaries: their different views on religion and theology stem from different understandings of human nature and the proper role of science in human life. Rousseau emphasizes not just what is true, but also what is useful—psychologically, morally, and politically—for human beings. Comprehensive and nuanced, Rousseau’s God is vital to understanding key categories of Rousseau’s thought.

Rousseau's Ethics of Truth
Rousseau's Ethics of Truth

Author: Jason Neidleman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-01

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1317224701

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In 1758, Rousseau announced that he had adopted "vitam impendere vero" (dedicate life to truth) as a personal pledge. Despite the dramatic nature of this declaration, no scholar has yet approached Rousseau’s work through the lens of truth or truthseeking. What did it mean for Rousseau to lead a life dedicated to truth? This book presents Rousseau’s normative account of truthseeking, his account of what human beings must do if they hope to discover the truths essential to human happiness. Rousseau’s writings constitute a practical guide to these truths; they describe how he arrived at them and how others might as well. In reading Rousseau through the lens of truth, Neidleman traverses the entirety of Rousseau's corpus, and, in the process, reveals a series of symmetries among the disparate themes treated in those texts. The first section of the book lays out Rousseau’s general philosophy of truth and truthseeking. The second section follows Rousseau down four distinct pathways to truth: reverie, republicanism, religion, and reason. With a strong grounding in both the Anglophone and Francophone scholarship on Rousseau, this book will appeal to scholars across a broad range of disciplines.

Rousseau's Exemplary Life
Rousseau's Exemplary Life

Author: Christopher Kelly

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2019-05-15

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 150174593X

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In this stimulating reading of Rousseau's Confessions, Christopher Kelly breaks down the artificial distinction traditionally made between this autobiographical work and Rousseau's overtly philosophical works. At the same time, Kelly provides us with the most complete commentary on the Confessions written in any language.

Rousseau and Freedom
Rousseau and Freedom

Author: Christie McDonald

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-04-22

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1139486241

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Debates about freedom, an ideal continually contested, were first set out in their modern version by the eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His ideas and analyses were taken up during the philosophical enlightenment, often invoked during the French Revolution, and still resonate in contemporary discussions of freedom. This volume, first published in 2010, examines Rousseau's many approaches to the concept of freedom, in the context of his thought on literature, religion, music, theater, women, the body, and the arts. Its expert contributors cross disciplinary frontiers to develop thought-provoking new angles on Rousseau's thought. By taking freedom as the guiding principle of their analysis, the essays form a cohesive account of Rousseau's writings.

The Rousseauian Mind
The Rousseauian Mind

Author: Eve Grace

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-01-17

Total Pages: 602

ISBN-13: 0429665229

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) is a major figure in Western Philosophy and is one of the most widely read and studied political philosophers of all time. His writings range from abstract works such as On the Social Contract to literary masterpieces such as The Reveries of the Solitary Walker as well as immensely popular novels and operas. The Rousseauian Mind provides a comprehensive survey of his work, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its contemporary significance. Comprising over forty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook covers: The predecessors and contemporaries to Rousseau’s work The major texts of the 'system' Autobiographical texts including Confessions, Reveries of the Solitary Walker and Dialogues Rousseau’s political science The successors to Rousseau’s work Rousseau applied today. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, Rousseau’s work is central to the study of political philosophy, the Enlightenment, French studies, the history of philosophy and political theory.

God and Self in the Confessional Novel
God and Self in the Confessional Novel

Author: John D. Sykes, Jr.

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-08

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 3319913220

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God and Self in the Confessional Novel explores the question: what happened to the theological practice of confession when it entered the modern novel? Beginning with the premise that guilt remains a universal human concern, this book considers confession via the classic confessional texts of Augustine and Rousseau. Employing this framework, John D. Sykes, Jr. examines Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, Percy’s Lancelot, and McEwan’s Atonement to investigate the evolution of confession and guilt in literature from the eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century.

Prayer in the Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Prayer in the Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Author: Charles A. Spirn

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9781433101380

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This book casts a new light on Rousseau's personality and beliefs. Although the predominant thinkers of the time had a deistic outlook (God as distant and impersonal) and stressed rationalism and enlightenment, Rousseau stressed man's moral and spiritual aspects and needs, including praying to a God who listens and may respond. In this book, Charles A. Spirn has collected the prayers Rousseau wrote, which are scattered throughout his writings, thus publishing his acclaimed dissertation. Rousseau's beliefs are shown to be largely theistic, believing in a God who rules the world and has a personal, providential, and responsive relationship with humanity. He is increasingly seen as the most influential French thinker of the 18th century who challenged the great of his day. Both clergymen and laymen turned to him for guidance in spiritual and existential matters.

Rousseau
Rousseau

Author: Timothy O'Hagan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1134393725

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Timothy O'Hagan investigates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's writings concerning the formation of humanity, of the individual and of the citizen in his three master works: the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men, Emile and the Social Contract. He explores Rousseau's reflections on the sexes, language and religion. O'Hagan gives Rousseau's arguments a close and sympathetic reading. He writes as a philosopher, not a historian, yet he never loses sight of the cultural context of Rousseau's work.

Rousseau and the Dilemmas of Modernity
Rousseau and the Dilemmas of Modernity

Author: Mark Hulliung

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1351492586

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This volume seeks to capture Jean-Jacques Rousseau's astonishing contribution to our understanding of the dilemmas of modernity. For the contributors to this book Rousseau is present as well as past, because he was so modern and yet so ambivalent about modernity, a position with which we are quite familiar. Highlighted in this volume is the contention that Rousseau set the stage for many discussions of the good and bad of modernity.Previous efforts to deal with Rousseau and modernity have suffered from myopia. In the nineteenth century the Romantics claimed Rousseau as one of their own, pulling him out of his historical context, ignoring his full scale immersion in the debates of the French Enlightenment. In the twentieth century commentators have read into Rousseau the ahistorical and present-minded Cold War theme of "Rousseau the totalitarian."In this volume Rousseau is treated as a person of his age but also as someone who speaks to us today. The topics covered range from feminism, music, science, and political theory, to updating the classics, and to the search for and limitations to the quest for self-knowledge. Few if any figures can compete with Rousseau when it comes to forcing us to face up to the price we pay for "progress."