Commentary

• “Rousseau” in Protestant Thought

  - [Essay] Karl Barth, “Rousseau”, Chapter II of Karl Barth, Protestant Thought: from Rousseau to Ritschl (Translated by Brian Cozens from eleven chapters of Die Protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert) Harper & Brothers: New York, 1959, p 58-117
  Excerpt: With Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the middle of the eighteenth century,  the new age begins which we call the age of Goethe, the age which  presented Protestant theology after Schleiermacher with the problem  with which it chose to concern itself,… More

• The General Will Before Rousseau

  -
  Patrick Riley, "The General Will before Rousseau," Political Theory , Vol. 6, No. 4, (Nov., 1978), pp. 485-516.
  Excerpt: No one has ever doubted that the notion of the “general  will” (volonte  generale) is central  in Rousseau’s political  and moral  philosophy;  Rousseau himself  says that “the general will is always  right,”-… More

• 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 on Providence

  - Victor Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Providence,” The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 53, No. 3, March 2000.
  Excerpt: Kant held that Rousseau and Newton had revealed the ways of  Providence: “After Newton and Rousseau, God is justified, and Pope’s  thesis is henceforth true.”  Rousseau discussed Providence and Pope’s thesis that… More

• A Reinterpretation of Rousseau: A Religious System

  - Jeremiah Alberg, A Reinterpretation of Rousseau: A Religious System (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
  From the publisher: In this radical reinterpretation of Rousseau, Jeremiah Alberg reveals the neglected theological dimension of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy. Alberg shows how only Christianity can bring the coherence of Rousseau’s system to… 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