Tag: Rousseau

Topics

Other Works

  • Essay on the Origin of Languages

    - Recommended Translation: ‘Essay on the Origin of Languages,’ in Rousseau: The Discourses and other early political writings, ed. and trans. by Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 247-299.
    Rousseau’s Essay on the Origin of Languages (Essai sur l’origine des langues) was first published posthumously in 1781. Rousseau wrote that he had originally intended to include this work in the his Second Discourse but that he finally decided to omit… More

Commentary

  • The Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men: On the Intention of Rousseau’s Most Philosophical Work

    - Heinrich Meier, “The Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men: On the Intention of Rousseau's Most Philosophical Work,” trans. by J. Harvey Lomax, Interpretation, 16 (1988-89): 211-228.
    Excerpt: Rousseau in the Confessions called the Discours sur l’inegalite that piece  among all his writings in which his principles “are made manifest with the  greatest boldness, not to  say  audacity.”  That does not mean, to be sure,… More

  • The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau’s Thought

    - Arthur Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau’s Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
    From the publisher: An artistic analogy–that of an old painting’s restoration–best describes Melzer’s excellent analysis and study of one of Rousseau’s key ideas: his belief in the natural goodness of Man. By systematically… More

  • The Philosopher’s Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume, and the Limits of Human Understanding

    - John Scott and Robert Zaretsky, The Philosopher’s Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume, and the Limits of Human Understanding (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).
    From the publisher: 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… More