Author : Laura M. Pfalzer
Publisher :
Page : 81 pages
File Size : 14,37 MB
Release : 2017
Category : Civilization, Modern
ISBN :
Author : Graeme Garrard
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 207 pages
File Size : 30,93 MB
Release : 2012-02-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0791487431
Arguing that the question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's relationship to the Enlightenment has been eclipsed and seriously distorted by his association with the French Revolution, Graeme Garrard presents the first book-length case that shows Rousseau as the pivotal figure in the emergence of Counter-Enlightenment thought. Viewed in the context in which he actually lived and wrote—from the middle of the eighteenth century to his death in 1778—it is apparent that Rousseau categorically rejected the Enlightenment "republic of letters" in favor of his own "republic of virtue." The philosophes, placing faith in reason and natural human sociability and subjecting religion to systematic criticism and doubt, naively minimized the deep tensions and complexities of collective life and the power disintegrative forces posed to social order. Rousseau believed that the ever precarious social order could only be achieved artificially, by manufacturing "sentiments of sociability," reshaping individuals to identify with common interests instead of their own selfish interests.
Author : James Delaney
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 171 pages
File Size : 28,16 MB
Release : 2006-09-15
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1847144160
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is an enigmatic figure in many ways. There is much debate about whether he was an advocate of the Enlightenment project or a critic of it. Sometimes Rousseau seems to be arguing against traditional values and hierarchies. But elsewhere he seems to be an enemy of progress altogether. This book explains Rousseau's true place in the Enlightenment by paying particular attention to his account of virtue. Virtue ethics is one of the main branches in moral philosophy, and its most famous advocate is Aristotle. Many recent philosophers have tried to revive virtue ethics, most notably Alasdair MacIntyre in his 1984 book, After Virtue. MacIntyre argues that the Enlightenment project was doomed to fail precisely because Enlightenment philosophers had discarded Aristotle. They do this by rejecting Aristotle's claim that all things are, by nature, directed towards some proper end. The enlightenment figures whom MacIntyre discusses at length in his critique are Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard. And while Rousseau is mentioned as an Enlightenment thinker, very little attention is paid to him. This book puts Rousseau's ethics into historical perspective, showing that Rousseau shares important characteristics with his contemporaries as well as with the tradition of Aristotle. The dichotomy set up by MacIntyre and others between the ethics of the ancient tradition and that of the Enlightenment is oversimplified. By taking a serious look at Rousseau's ethics, we can see that he forms a bridge between these two rich traditions in the history of Western philosophy.
Author : Jeff J. S. Black
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 32,69 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780739125175
Rousseau's Critique of Science argues that the First Discourse is an indispensable work, both for those interested in understanding Rousseau's philosophical system, and for those interested in the political consequences of the modern liberal democratic commitment to scientific progress. Through two simultaneous readings of the Discourse--a "na ve" reading that examines Rousseau's arguments in isolation, and a "sophisticated" reading that interprets these arguments in the light of Rousseau's later systematic works--the commentary pursues answers to four questions, about the basis of Rousseau's thesis that scientific progress contributes to moral corruption, about the origin and method of Rousseau's philosophical system, about the place of the Discourse in Rousseau's system, and about the consequences of Rousseau's critique of science for the future happiness of mankind. In this pursuit, the commentary follows the order of the Discourse itself, and is organized into two sections and nine chapters: an introduction; seven topical chapters, each treating a theme raised by the Discourse; and a conclusion. In answer to its four guiding questions, it concludes that Rousseau's thesis is based on his understanding of the nature of the interaction of reason and vanity; that Rousseau's system originates in introspection and is established by a non-historical method of analysis and synthesis; that the Discourse is an indispensable part of Rousseau's system because it spells out the beginnings of this analysis and the conclusions of this synthesis, and through the limitations of its arguments points to the entire extent of his system; and that as a result Rousseau's critique of science has much to teach us about the dangers involved in our political commitment to scientific progress, and about the ways in which the future happiness of mankind might be secured.
Author : Mark Hulliung
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 263 pages
File Size : 45,28 MB
Release : 2017-07-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1351492586
This volume seeks to capture Jean-Jacques Rousseau's astonishing contribution to our understanding of the dilemmas of modernity. For the contributors to this book Rousseau is present as well as past, because he was so modern and yet so ambivalent about modernity, a position with which we are quite familiar. Highlighted in this volume is the contention that Rousseau set the stage for many discussions of the good and bad of modernity.Previous efforts to deal with Rousseau and modernity have suffered from myopia. In the nineteenth century the Romantics claimed Rousseau as one of their own, pulling him out of his historical context, ignoring his full scale immersion in the debates of the French Enlightenment. In the twentieth century commentators have read into Rousseau the ahistorical and present-minded Cold War theme of "Rousseau the totalitarian."In this volume Rousseau is treated as a person of his age but also as someone who speaks to us today. The topics covered range from feminism, music, science, and political theory, to updating the classics, and to the search for and limitations to the quest for self-knowledge. Few if any figures can compete with Rousseau when it comes to forcing us to face up to the price we pay for "progress."
Author : Joseph Marie comte de Maistre
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 40,8 MB
Release : 1996
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780773514157
A translation of Joseph De Maistre's critique of Rousseau providing a historical forum for understanding the intellectual qualities of the counter-revolution from 1792 to 1797. Obviously, De Maistre's arguments were not successful, but they are valuable in terms of exploring Rousseau's ideologies, in particular his belief in the natural goodness of man and popular sovereignty. Although the two men are usually seen as polar opposites, De Maistre's critique reveals ambiguities that make him seem surprisingly more similar than he would have admitted. Lebrun (history, U. of Manitoba) provides a qualitative introduction. Canadian card order number C95-900-929-9. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author : Mark Hulliung
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 47,38 MB
Release : 2017-09-29
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1351305557
Of all the critiques of the Enlightenment, the most telling may be found in the life and writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This searching, long overlooked auto critique receives its first full treatment by Mark Hulliung. Here he restores Rousseau to his historical context, the world of the philosophes, and shows how he employed the arsenal of Voltaire, Diderot, and others to launch a powerful attack on their version of the Enlightenment. With great intellectual skill and rhetorical force, Rousseau exposed the inconsistencies and shortcomings of the Enlightenment: the psychology of Locke, the genre of philosophical and conjectural history, the latest applications of science to the study of society and politics, and the growing interest in materialist modes of thought. As the century moved on, Hulliung shows, the most advanced philosophes found themselves drawn to conclusions that paralleled Rousseau's an agreement that went unacknowledged at the time. The Enlightenment that emerges here is richer, more nuanced, and more self-critical than the one reflected in many interpretations. By extracting Rousseau from personal entangle-ments that stymied debate in his time and that mislead critics to this day, Hulliung reveals the remarkable and remarkably unacknowledged force of Rousseau's accomplishment. This edition includes a brilliant new introduction by the author.
Author : Laurie M. Johnson
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 215 pages
File Size : 36,30 MB
Release : 2012
Category : History
ISBN : 0739147870
Laurie Johnson investigates two Enlightenment-era reactions to honor in Locke and Rousseau. She provides an in-depth analysis of how political philosophers John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau react differently to the place and importance of honor in society. Locke continues the trend of rejecting honor as a means of achieving order and justice in society, preferring instead the modern motivation of rational self-interest. Johnson explores the possibility of an honor code that is compatible with Lockean liberalism, but also points out the problems inherent in such a project. She then turns to Rousseau, whose reaction to Enlightenment ideas reveals our own "divided mood." Rousseau's worries and ambivalence about honor are our worries and ambivalence, and his failed attempt to revise honor in a way that works within the modern system highlights how difficult any project to resurrect the value of honor will be. This book will interest anyone who wonders what happened to honor in our world today, including students of communitarianism. Johnson warns us that we cannot simply look to the past, to the ideals of Locke or other Enlightenment thinkers such as the American founders, for answers to our current family, social, and economic problems, because our problems at least partly stem from Enlightenment liberal thought. Instead we must fully recognize this connection before we can start to formulate a definition of honor that can work for us today.
Author : Jason Neidleman
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 267 pages
File Size : 25,42 MB
Release : 2016-07-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 131722471X
In 1758, Rousseau announced that he had adopted "vitam impendere vero" (dedicate life to truth) as a personal pledge. Despite the dramatic nature of this declaration, no scholar has yet approached Rousseau’s work through the lens of truth or truthseeking. What did it mean for Rousseau to lead a life dedicated to truth? This book presents Rousseau’s normative account of truthseeking, his account of what human beings must do if they hope to discover the truths essential to human happiness. Rousseau’s writings constitute a practical guide to these truths; they describe how he arrived at them and how others might as well. In reading Rousseau through the lens of truth, Neidleman traverses the entirety of Rousseau's corpus, and, in the process, reveals a series of symmetries among the disparate themes treated in those texts. The first section of the book lays out Rousseau’s general philosophy of truth and truthseeking. The second section follows Rousseau down four distinct pathways to truth: reverie, republicanism, religion, and reason. With a strong grounding in both the Anglophone and Francophone scholarship on Rousseau, this book will appeal to scholars across a broad range of disciplines.
Author : Jean Jacques Rousseau
Publisher : Bedford
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 16,15 MB
Release : 2010-10-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9780312468422
A provocative essay that challenged the superiority of civilized society and modern government, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality made him an outcast among fellow Enlightenment thinkers but stands today as one of the most important political texts in Western history. Helena Rosenblatt's new translation, introduction, and selection of related documents help students comprehend why Rousseau's criticisms of human nature, political hierarchy, and private property were so controversial in his time yet later were hailed as a foundation of democracy. The introduction explores life experiences that shaped Rousseau's philosophy, explains contemporary ideas about political authority and social order, and guides students through Rousseau's thought, including explanations of how his work anticipated theories about evolution and inspired leaders of the French Revolution. Related primary documents - including a selection from Rousseau's Social Contract - situate Rousseau's ideas in contemporary political and social thought. Questions for consideration, a chronology of Rousseau's life and work, and a selected bibliography enrich students' understanding of the man and his times.
