Commentary

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction

  - Jean Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction, trans. by Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
  From the publisher: Jean Starobinski, one of Europe’s foremost literary critics, examines the life that led Rousseau, who so passionately sought open, transparent communication with others, to accept and even foster obstacles that permitted him to… More

• The Legacy of Rousseau

  - The Legacy of Rousseau, edited by Clifford Orwin and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
  From the publisher: 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… More

• Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life

  - Laurence D. Cooper, Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life. (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999).
  From the publisher: 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… More

• The restlessness of ‘being’ Rousseau’s protean sentiment of existence

  - Eve Grace, “The restlessness of ‘being’ Rousseau's protean sentiment of existence,” History of European Ideas, Vol. 27, Issue 2, 2001.  
  Excerpt: The question of the sentiment of existence is central to Rousseau’s thought. For Rousseau’s apparent promise that salvation is to be found on earth for whomever is able to experience it appears as the heart of his claim that man is… More

• Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition

  - Frederick Neuhouser, Rousseau's Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
  From the publisher: This book is the first comprehensive study of Rousseau’s rich and complex theory of the type of self-love (amour propre ) that, for him, marks the central difference between humans and the beasts. Amour propre is the passion that… More