The Challenge of Rousseau

by Grace, Eve; Kelly, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9781107018280
• ISBN10: 1107018285
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-12-17
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

Written by prominent scholars of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophy, this collection celebrates the 300th anniversary of Rousseau's birth and the 250th anniversary of the publication of Emile. The depth and systematic character of Rousseau's thought was recognized almost immediately by thinkers such as Kant and Hegel, yet debate continues over the degree to which Rousseau's legacy is the result of poetic, literary, or rhetorical genius, rather than of philosophic rigor or profundity. The authors focus on Rousseau's genuine yet undervalued stature as a philosopher. This collection includes essays that develop some of the complex problems Rousseau treated so radically and profoundly, as well as essays on the vigorous debates he engaged in with thoughtful contemporaries and predecessors.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Politics and Economics

Rousseau and the illustrious Montesquieu

Political economy and individual liberty

Science and Epistemology

The presence of sciences in Rousseau's trajectory and works

Epistemology and political perception in the case of Rousseau

The Modern or Classical, Theological or Philosophical, Foundations of Rousseau's System

On the intention of Rousseau

On Strauss on Rousseau

Built on sand: moral law in Rousseau's Second Discourse

Rousseau and Pascal

Rousseau as Educator and Legislator

The measure of the possible: imagination in Rousseau's philosophical pedagogy

Rousseau's French revolution

Rousseau's challenge to Locke (and to us)

Stalking Puer Robustus: Hobbes and Rousseau on the origin of human malice

Unease, Happiness, and Death

Rousseau's unease with Locke's uneasiness

Montaigne and Rousseau: some reflections

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