Major Works

• Emile

  - Recommended translation: Emile or On Education, ed. and trans. by Alan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1979). Originally published in 1762.
  Published in 1762, Emile, or On Education, outlined a process of education that would prevent man from being corrupted by society and instead nurture his natural virtues and goodness. Part-treatise, part-novel, the work recounts the life of a fictional… More

Commentary

• Rousseau’s Civil Religion Reconsidered

  - Terence Ball, “Rousseau's Civil Religion Reconsidered,” in Reappraising Political Theory: Revisionist Studies in the History of Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
  Excerpt: I ask and attempt to answer three questions. First, what role or place does Rousseau’s scheme for a civil religion occupy in his political theory? Second, what were Rousseau’s intentions—i.e. what was he attempting to do—in devising… More

• Rousseau and l’Infâme: Religion, Toleration, and Fanaticism in the Age of Enlightenment

  - John T. Scott and Ourida Mostefai (editors), Rousseau and l'Infâme: Religion, Toleration, and Fanaticism in the Age of Enlightenment (Amsterdam: Rodolphi Press, 2008).
  From the publisher: Ecrasez l’infâme! Voltaire’s rallying cry against fanaticism resonates with new force today. Nothing suggests the complex legacy of the Enlightenment more than the struggle of superstition, prejudice, and intolerance advocated… More