Rousseau's Hand explores Rousseau's involvement in and promotion of craft in the context of the technological developments of the Enlightenment and his own European celebrity as a writer.
The Life of Wisdom in Rousseau's "Reveries of the Solitary Walker" is the first complete exegesis and interpretation of Rousseau's final and culminating work, showing its full philosophic and moral teaching. The Reveries has been celebrated as a work of literature that is an acknowledged acme of French prose writing. Thomas L. Pangle argues that this aesthetic appreciation necessitates an in-depth interpretation of the writing's complex and multileveled intended teaching about the normatively best way of life—and how essential this is for a work that was initially bewildering. Rousseau stands out among modern political philosophers in that he restored, to political philosophy, what Socrates and his students (from Plato and Xenophon through Aristotle and the Stoics and Cicero) had made central—and that the previous modern, Enlightenment philosophers had eclipsed: the study of the life and soul of the exemplary, independent sage, as possessor of "human wisdom." Rousseau made this again the supreme theme and source of norms for political philosophy and for humanity's moral as well as civic existence. In his analysis of The Reveries, Pangle uncovers Rousseau's most profound exploration and articulation of his own life, personality, soul, and thought as "the man of nature enlightened by reason." He describes, in Rousseau's final work, the fullest embodiment of the experiential wisdom from which flows and to which points Rousseau's political and moral philosophy, his theology, and his musical and literary art.
Originally published in 1966. This book is primarily a literary study of Rousseau's account of his diplomatic experiences in Venice, contained in book 7 of the Confessions and written in 1769. The author analyzes Rousseau's methods of achieving an artistic rendering of psychological truth in autobiography, as exemplified in his treatment of the events of 1742–1749. Professor Madeleine Ellis contributes to an understanding of Rousseau as a creative artist and positions him vis-à-vis the classical and romantic movements. Ellis collates the text of the Confessions with contemporary correspondence and other documents to show how discrepancies between the two have artistic implications. These implications lead her to define Rousseau's principles and methods as a man of letters and the interrelations of art and truth in his memoirs. In revealing that Rousseau, the memorialist, gives an artistic rendering of psychological truth, Ellis shows Rousseau's attitude toward truth. She does this by following a path of analysis unexplored by previous critics but indicated by Rousseau himself when he says, "It is the story of my soul that I have promised . . . I record not so much the events of my life as the state of my soul as they happened." Ultimately, the objective of this study is to illustrate the artistic means—literary and rhetorical—employed by Rousseau and their implications for the truth he proposed.
The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is presented in two volumes, together forming the most comprehensive anthology of Rousseau's political writings in English. Volume II contains the later writings such as The Social Contract and a selection of Rousseau's letters on important aspects of his thought. The Social Contract has become Rousseau's most famous single work, but on publication was condemned by both the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities in France and Geneva. Rousseau fled and it is during this period that he wrote some of his autobiographical works as well as political essays such as On the Government of Poland. This 1997 volume, like its predecessor, contains a comprehensive introduction, chronology and guide to further reading, and will enable students to obtain a full understanding of the writings of one of the world's greatest thinkers.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) is generally seen as one of the most important figures whose ideas had a great influence on the French Revolution (1789). Many immediately associate him with the concept of "the noble savage." However, just as with his political and philosophical writings, his love for botany and scenery would change the landscape of continental Europe, if not the world. This book presents a unique view of the young Rousseau's awakening love for plants, and his sometimes euphoric appreciation of the scenery during his endless walks. The author unfolds the development of Rousseau's concept of nature, which makes it possible to pinpoint the exact and pivotal moment of change in his thinking about the natural environment. This culminated in a vision that converged with the the Marquis de Girardin's ideas about landscaping. The reader follows the Marquis during the development of the first English Garden in France, where Rousseau probably spent the happiest weeks of his life. While the park represents Rousseau's dream come true, it was destined to become the place of both his death and his tomb. In text and photographs this book captures the character of the park, built around the concepts of two men of fundamentally different character. It is the park's intricate mixture of bliss and gloominess that put a spell on the reader and every visitor.
What is freedom? What is equality? And what is sovereignty? A foundational text of modern political philosophy, Rousseau's Social Contract has generated much debate and exerted extraordinary influence not only on political thought, but also modern political history, by way of the French Revolution and other political events, ideals, and practices. The Social Contract is regularly studied in undergraduate courses of philosophy, political thought, and modern intellectual history, as well as being the subject of graduate seminars in numerous disciplines. The book inspires an ongoing flow of scholarly articles and monographs. Few texts have offered more influential and important answers to research questions than Rousseau's Social Contract, and in this new Cambridge Companion, a multidisciplinary team of contributors provides new ways to navigate this masterpiece of political philosophy- and its animating questions.
Rousseau's relation to the Western intellectual tradition is re-examined through a series of 'conversations' between Rousseau and other 'great thinkers'.