Download or read book Letter to Beaumont Letters Written from the Mountain and Related Writings written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published between 1762 and 1765, these writings are the last works Rousseau wrote for publication during his lifetime. Responding in each to the censorship and burning of Emile and Social Contract, Rousseau airs his views on censorship, religion, and the relation between theory and practice in politics. The Letter to Beaumont is a response to a Pastoral Letter by Christophe de Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris (also included in this volume), which attacks the religious teaching in Emile. Rousseau's response concerns the general theme of the relation between reason and revelation and contains his most explicit and boldest discussions of the Christian doctrines of creation, miracles, and original sin. In Letters Written from the Mountain, a response to the political crisis in Rousseau's homeland of Geneva caused by a dispute over the burning of his works, Rousseau extends his discussion of Christianity and shows how the political principles of the Social Contract can be applied to a concrete constitutional crisis. One of his most important statements on the relation between political philosophy and political practice, it is accompanied by a fragmentary "History of the Government of Geneva." Finally, "Vision of Peter of the Mountain, Called the Seer" is a humorous response to a resident of Motiers who had been inciting attacks on Rousseau during his exile there. Taking the form of a scriptural account of a vision, it is one of the rare examples of satire from Rousseau's pen and the only work he published anonymously after his decision in the early 1750s to put his name on all his published works. Within its satirical form, the "Vision" contains Rousseau's last public reflections on religious issues. Neither the Letter to Beaumont nor the Letters Written from the Mountain has been translated into English since defective translations that appeared shortly after their appearance in French. These are the first translations of both the "History" and the "Vision."
Download or read book The Collected Writings of Rousseau Letter to Beaumont letters written from the mountain and related writings written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Jean Jacques Rousseau Fundamental Political Writings written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classroom edition includes On the Social Contract, the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, and the Preface to Narcissus. Each text has been newly translated and includes a full complement of explanatory notes. The editors’ introduction offers students diverse points of entry into some of the distinctive possibilities and challenges of each of these fundamental texts, as well as an introduction to Rousseau’s life and historical situation. The volume also includes annotated appendices that help students to explore the origins and influences of Rousseau’s work, including excerpts from Hobbes, Pascal, Descartes, Mandeville, Diderot, Voltaire, Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant, Joseph de Maistre, Kant, Hegel, and Engels.
Download or read book Rousseau s Social Contract written by David Lay Williams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-13 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it was banished from France. Soon thereafter, Rousseau fled to Geneva, where he saw the book burned in public. At the same time, many of his contemporaries, such as Kant, considered Rousseau to be 'the Newton of the moral world', as he was the first philosopher to draw attention to the basic dignity of human nature. The Social Contract has never ceased to be read and debated in the 250 years since its publication. Rousseau's Social Contract: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text. David Lay Williams offers readers a chapter-by-chapter reading of the Social Contract, squarely confronting these interpretive obstacles. The book also features a special extended appendix dedicated to outlining Rousseau's famous conception of the general will, which has been the object of controversy since the Social Contract's publication in 1762.
Download or read book The General Will written by James Farr and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-16 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although it originated in theological debates, the general will ultimately became one of the most celebrated and denigrated concepts emerging from early modern political thought. Jean-Jacques Rousseau made it the central element of his political theory, and it took on a life of its own during the French Revolution, before being subjected to generations of embrace or opprobrium. James Farr and David Lay Williams have collected for the first time a set of essays that track the evolving history of the general will from its origins to recent times. The General Will: The Evolution of a Concept discusses the general will's theological, political, formal, and substantive dimensions with a careful eye toward the concept's virtues and limitations as understood by its expositors and critics, among them Arnauld, Pascal, Malebranche, Leibniz, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Kant, Constant, Tocqueville, Adam Smith and John Rawls.
Download or read book Rousseau s Platonic Enlightenment written by David Lay Williams and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this sterling, deeply researched study, Williams explores how thinkers ranging from Hobbes to d'Holbach highlight various sets of ideas that Rousseau combated in developing his philosophical teaching. The account of Rousseau's predecessors who might be called Platonists is especially interesting, as is the account of those who qualify as materialists. Moreover, Williams provides a good overview of Rousseau's teaching, demonstrates a commendable grasp of the relevant secondary literature, and argues ably for the superiority of his own interpretations ... Clearly written and superbly organized, this book contributes much to Rousseau studies. An indispensable book for Rousseau scholars, this volume also will appeal to general readers and students at all levels."--C.E. Butterworth, CHOICE.
Download or read book Rousseau and Freedom written by Christie McDonald and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-22 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debates about freedom, an ideal continually contested, were first set out in their modern version by the eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His ideas and analyses were taken up during the philosophical enlightenment, often invoked during the French Revolution, and still resonate in contemporary discussions of freedom. This volume, first published in 2010, examines Rousseau's many approaches to the concept of freedom, in the context of his thought on literature, religion, music, theater, women, the body, and the arts. Its expert contributors cross disciplinary frontiers to develop thought-provoking new angles on Rousseau's thought. By taking freedom as the guiding principle of their analysis, the essays form a cohesive account of Rousseau's writings.
Download or read book The Greatest of All Plagues written by David Lay Williams and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-03 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the great political thinkers have persistently warned against the dangers of economic inequality Economic inequality is one of the most daunting challenges of our time, with public debate often turning to questions of whether it is an inevitable outcome of economic systems and what, if anything, can be done about it. But why, exactly, should inequality worry us? The Greatest of All Plagues demonstrates that this underlying question has been a central preoccupation of some of the most eminent political thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition. David Lay Williams shares bold new perspectives on the writings and ideas of Plato, Jesus, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx. He shows how they describe economic inequality as a source of political instability and a corrupter of character and soul, and how they view unchecked inequality as a threat to their most cherished values, such as justice, faith, civic harmony, peace, democracy, and freedom. Williams draws invaluable insights into the societal problems generated by what Plato called “the greatest of all plagues,” and examines the solutions employed through the centuries. An eye-opening work of intellectual history, The Greatest of All Plagues recovers a forgotten past for some of the most timeless books in the Western canon, revealing how economic inequality has been a paramount problem throughout the history of political thought.
Download or read book Jean Jacques Rousseau written by Jurgen Oelkers and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, enlightenment philosopher and founder of 'natural education', is one of the most influential philosophers of education in the western world. In order to fully understand Rousseau's impact as a true educational thinker, Jurgen Oelkers argues that we must take into account his paradoxical style, unique intellectual biography and his turbulent and unconventional way of life. Combining historical analysis and contemporary ethical theory, this text serves as both an introduction to Rousseau's theories of education and a critique of his views, and shows how Rousseau was a pioneer in exploring educational issues within the context of his own philosophical problems in order to present innovative solutions.
Download or read book The Political Thought of John Holloway written by Alfonso García Vela and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-09-17 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides renewed reflection and critical discussion on John Holloway's political and theoretical thought. Two decades ago, in Change the World without Taking Power, Holloway set out on a path that he followed a decade later in Crack Capitalism and continues to walk today with his new book, Hope in Hopeless Times. The contributions in this volume critically analyze his innovative attempt to rethink the meaning and dynamics of revolution in the conditions of contemporary capitalism. More than ten years after the publication of Crack Capitalism, this volume aims to question Holloway's attempt, as well as his theoretical foundations in his original rereading of Marxism and Critical Theory and their relations with the characteristics adopted by the anti-capitalist struggles during the last two decades. Its authors, from different geographies, traditions, and scientific disciplines, establish throughout its pages a fruitful dialogue convened by Holloway's innovative ideas.
Download or read book Rousseau and German Idealism written by David James and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-08 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A systematic account of Rousseau's significance in relation to Kant's, Fichte's and Hegel's views on freedom, dependence and necessity.
Download or read book The Enlightenment in Practice written by Jeremy L. Caradonna and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-17 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public academic prize contests-the concours académique-played a significant role in the intellectual life of Enlightenment France, with aspirants formulating positions on such matters as slavery, poverty, the education of women, tax reform, and urban renewal and submitting the resulting essays for scrutiny by panels of judges. In The Enlightenment in Practice, Jeremy L. Caradonna draws on archives both in Paris and the provinces to show that thousands of individuals-ranging from elite men and women of letters artisans, and peasants-participated in these intellectual competitions, a far broader range of people than has been previously assumed. Caradonna contends that the Enlightenment in France can no longer be seen as a cultural movement restricted to a small coterie of philosophers or a limited number of printed texts. Moreover, Caradonna demonstrates that the French monarchy took academic competitions quite seriously, sponsoring numerous contests on such practical matters as deforestation, the quality of drinking water, and the nighttime illumination of cities. In some cases, the contests served as an early mechanism for technology transfer: the state used submissions to identify technical experts to whom it could turn for advice. Finally, the author shows how this unique intellectual exercise declined during the upheavals of the French Revolution, when voicing moderate public criticism became a rather dangerous act.
Download or read book Powers and Abilities in Early Modern Philosophy written by Sebastian Bender and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-28 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores different accounts of powers and abilities in early modern philosophy. It analyzes powers and abilities as a package, hopefully enabling us to better understand them both and to see similarities as well as dissimilarities. While some prominent early modern accounts of power have been studied in detail, this volume also covers lesser‐known thinkers and several early modern women philosophers. The volume also investigates early modern accounts of powers and abilities in a more systematic fashion than has been previously done. By broadening its scope in these ways, the volume uncovers trends and tendencies in early modern thinking about powers and abilities that are easy to miss. Chapters in this book explore how 22 early modern thinkers approached the following questions: What kind of entities are powers and abilities? Are they reducible to something categorical or not? What is the relation between powers and abilities? Is there a fundamental metaphysical difference between them or not? How do we know what powers objects have and what abilities agents have? Are human abilities in any way special? How do they relate to the abilities non‐human animals have? And how do they relate to the powers of inanimate objects? Powers and Abilities in Early Modern Philosophy will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in the history of early modern philosophy, in metaphysics, and in the history of science.
Download or read book Toleration in Conflict written by Rainer Forst and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents the most comprehensive historical and systematic study of the theory and practice of toleration ever written.
Download or read book Reading Texts on Sovereignty written by Stella Achilleos and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading Texts on Sovereignty charts the development of the concept from the classical period to the present day. Defined in antiquity as an absolute or supreme type of power, sovereignty's history has been marked ever since by numerous moments of crisis and contestation through which its meaning has been redefined and reconfigured. Using extracts of key texts selected and analysed by leading contributors from the USA, the UK, New Zealand, Japan, Cyprus, Finland, France, Austria, Israel, and Italy, this volume examines these moments and how different societies have grappled with sovereignty through the ages. The book explores a diverse range of geographical and cultural contexts within which the issue of sovereignty became critical, including ancient China and medieval Islam. In addition, the book includes chapters that respond to the vital interplay between the development of the theory of sovereignty and such momentous historical events and developments as the birth of the democratic polis in the classical world, the legal and political developments that attended the rise of the Roman and Islamic empires, the bitter struggles over sovereign rights between the 'temporal' and 'spiritual' authorities of medieval and early modern Europe, the English Civil War, the French and American Revolutions, and the October Revolution.
Download or read book The Devil Wins written by Dallas G. Denery II and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold retelling of the history of lying in medieval and early modern Europe Is it ever acceptable to lie? This question plays a surprisingly important role in the story of Europe's transition from medieval to modern society. According to many historians, Europe became modern when Europeans began to lie—that is, when they began to argue that it is sometimes acceptable to lie. This popular account offers a clear trajectory of historical progression from a medieval world of faith, in which every lie is sinful, to a more worldly early modern society in which lying becomes a permissible strategy for self-defense and self-advancement. Unfortunately, this story is wrong. For medieval and early modern Christians, the problem of the lie was the problem of human existence itself. To ask "Is it ever acceptable to lie?" was to ask how we, as sinners, should live in a fallen world. As it turns out, the answer to that question depended on who did the asking. The Devil Wins uncovers the complicated history of lying from the early days of the Catholic Church to the Enlightenment, revealing the diversity of attitudes about lying by considering the question from the perspectives of five representative voices—the Devil, God, theologians, courtiers, and women. Examining works by Augustine, Bonaventure, Martin Luther, Madeleine de Scudéry, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and a host of others, Dallas G. Denery II shows how the lie, long thought to be the source of worldly corruption, eventually became the very basis of social cohesion and peace.
Download or read book Experience Embodied written by Anik Waldow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anik Waldow develops an account of embodied experience that extends from Descartes' conception of the human body as firmly integrated into the causal play of nature, to Kant's understanding of anthropology as a discipline that provides us with guidance in our lives as embodied creatures. Waldow defends the claim that during the early modern period, the debate on experience not only focused on questions arising from the subjectivity of our thinking and feeling, it also foregrounded the essentially embodied dimension of our lives as humans. By taking this approach, Waldow departs from the traditional epistemological route dominant in treatments of early-modern conceptions of experience. She makes the case that reflections on experience took center stage in a debate that was moral in nature, because it raised questions about the developmental potential of human beings and their capacity to instantiate the principles of self-determined agency in their lives. These questions emerged for many early modern authors since they understood that the fact that humans are embodied entailed that they are similarly responsive and causally-determined like other non-human animals. While this perspective made it possible to acknowledge that humans are part of the causal dynamics of nature, it called into question their ability to act in accordance with the principles of free, rational agency. Experience Embodied reveals how early modern authors responded to this challenge, offering a new perspective on the centrality of the concept of experience in comprehending the uniquely human place in nature.
