Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In this paper, I present the problem of the poor king, from combining Descartes and Rousseau.

Article où l'on propose une lecture égologique de la botanique rousseauiste. La botanique certifierait la continuité temporelle d'un moi menacé de fragmentation.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains an important figure in the history of philosophy, both because of his contributions to political philosophy and moral psychology and because of his influence on later thinkers. Rousseau's own view of philosophy and philosophers was firmly negative, seeing philosophers as the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, as apologists for various forms of tyranny, and as playing a role in the alienation of the modern individual from humanity's natural impulse to compassion. The concern that dominates Rousseau's work is to (...) find a way of preserving human freedom in a world where human beings are increasingly dependent on one another for the satisfaction of their needs. This concern has two dimensions: material and psychological, of which the latter has greater importance. In the modern world, human beings come to derive their very sense of self from the opinion of others, a fact which Rousseau sees as corrosive of freedom and destructive of individual authenticity. In his mature work, he principally explores two routes to achieving and protecting freedom: the first is a political one aimed at constructing political institutions that allow for the co-existence of free and equal citizens in a community where they themselves are sovereign; the second is a project for child development and education that fosters autonomy and avoids the development of the most destructive forms of self-interest. However, though Rousseau believes the co-existence of human beings in relations of equality and freedom is possible, he is consistently and overwhelmingly pessimistic that humanity will escape from a dystopia of alienation, oppression, and unfreedom. In addition to his contributions to philosophy, Rousseau was active as a composer and a music theorist, as the pioneer of modern.. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider what it might mean to approach boredom as a problem of post-history, rather than of modernity as such. Post-history, or ‘end of history’, in this sense, is linked with the...

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. In this paper, I consider what it might mean to approach boredom as a problem of post-history, rather than of modernity as such. Post-history, or ‘end of history’, in this sense, is linked with the impossibility or unlikelihood of political-systemic change, and thus with the disappearance of the contingency or temporal flux that had been understood as the context or prerequisite of political action and political freedom. I will, argue, firstly, that both Rousseau (...) and Fukuyama depict societies that are ‘post-historical’, in this sense, and which are marked by ‘boredom’ of this specifically post-historical kind. Secondly, I will argue that both thinkers link post-historical boredom with the disappearance or diminution of the ‘drive for recognition’ that both understood as both an agent and effect of ‘history’. Thirdly, I will argue that while Fukuyama understands post-historical boredom as an ‘irritant’ that threatens to restart history without quite succeeding in doing so, Rousseau understands it as an essentially stabilising condition that maintains post-historical man in an equilibrium modelled on the order of nature itself. And fourthly, I consider certain ways in which this ‘post-historical’ boredom might coexist and overlap with the ‘promise of intensity’ experienced in post-Fordist neoliberal society. (shrink)

It is common to assimilate Marx’s and Spinoza’s conceptions of democracy. In this chapter, I assess the relation between Marx’s early idea of “true democracy” and Spinozist democracy, both the historical influence and the theoretical affinity. Drawing on Marx’s student notebooks on Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, I show there was a historical influence. However, at the theoretical level, I argue that a sharp distinction must be drawn. Philosophically, Spinoza’s commitment to understanding politics through real concrete powers does not support with Marx’s (...) anti-institutional conception of true democracy. And as a matter of social theory, the gap between civil society and the state which so troubles Marx is a development of modernity that has not entered Spinoza's premodern field of view. Marx’s true democracy was also influenced by his study of Rousseau, and theoretically, it is just as close if not closer to Rousseau as to Spinoza. (shrink)

This article reframes the approach to Rousseau in political philosophy and histories of political thought by emphasizing some neglected aesthetic dimensions of amour-propre and the general will. I argue that Rousseau's account of the origins of amour-propre in aesthetic judgment alerts us to his view that the potentially dangerous effects of amour-propre can be mitigated if its 'extension' to others is grounded in an aesthetic appreciation of beauty. This pushes back against the predominant 'revisionist' interpretation of amour-propre in terms of (...) Hegelian 'recognition' or Rawlsian 'social bases of self-respect'. It also clears the ground for my recovery of Rousseau's neglected analogy between the general will and what he called the general taste. I argue that reconstructing the general taste and reconsidering the general will in its light yields a significant argument by analogy: like the general taste, the general will is democratically determined by majority vote, not constrained by transcendent standards. (shrink)

Kant ascribes two radically different kinds of language—symbolic or pictorial (qua intuitive) and discursive languages—to the “Oriental” and “Occidental” peoples respectively. By his analysis, having a merely symbolic language suggests that the “Orientals” lack understanding—and hence the ability to form concepts and think in abstracto—as well as genius and spirit. Meanwhile, he establishes discursive language as a sine qua non of the continued progress of humanity, primarily because only by means of words—as opposed to symbols—can one think (not just intuit), (...) signify one’s thoughts exactly, and make them universally communicable. Without such a language, one would not be able to make one’s feelings moral or develop a true moral character. In short, humanity would not be able to obtain its cultural or moral ends without discursive language. -/- These points add up to an exclusionary view of progress according to which the Occidental whites alone are equipped with the requisite discursive skills and other talents (including genius and spirit) to accomplish advanced culture and pursue humanity’s moral destiny. The “Orient,” with its “childish language,” is consigned to the childhood of humanity. In holding this view, Kant has departed from some of his predecessors—such as Leibniz, whose vision of the future of humanity includes an East-West harmony facilitated by a “universal symbolism,” and Rousseau, who exalts a livelier connection with the world mediated by a pictorial language. -/- The contrast with Leibniz and Rousseau also suggests that we cannot chalk up Kant’s exclusionary view of progress to mere personal prejudices. His philosophy is what gives meaning to his statements about the nature of the “Oriental” language. That is, the exclusionary view of progress emerges only when we take into account his anti-Leibnizian conceptualization of symbolic language as merely intuitive, his view that humanity is teleologically oriented toward the unique sort of moralization that he envisioned in the Groundwork, and his view that reason must lead the way in humanity’s progress toward this supposed moral end, wherefore only discursive language can facilitate such progress. (shrink)

« Je me croyais grec ou romain » écrit Rousseau de son enfance genevoise, durant laquelle le patriotisme de son père, son statut privilégié de citoyen et ses lectures de Plutarque se confondent en une même exaltation pour la vertu antique. La pensée politique de Rousseau semble ainsi pétrie de références à une Antiquité exemplaire et fantasmée – à Sparte, tout particulièrement. Elle s’est à ce titre régulièrement vu reprocher son anachronisme. Benjamin Constant, de façon célèbre, accuse Rouss...

Rousseau’s Confessions is written in the first person and addressed directly to God. Augustine’s work is an extended prayer and intimate conversation with a divine beloved. In the 16th century, groups of Christians broke with the Roman Catholic Church to start their Christian movements, but they, too, continued to consult Augustine. Augustine’s work, including The Confessions, has also contributed significantly to Western philosophy. A few examples include his insights about knowledge and illumination, the importance and centrality of will, subsequently taken (...) up by the likes of Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the fathers of existentialist philosophy, and his novel ideas about the march of human history. His ruthless self-scrutiny in The Confessions reflects a great understanding of the human psyche, while his view that humans are made for love continues to inspire readers. (shrink)

Preface -- Introduction : after the cave -- Part I. The life of philosophy and the life of Rousseau; The reveries of the solitary walker : an introduction -- Part II. "What am I?" : first walk; "A faithful record" : second walk; Becoming a philosopher : third walk; Being a philosopher : fourth, fifth, and sixth walks; Becoming a more perfect philosopher : seventh, eighth, and ninth walks; Coda : the love of wisdom and the wisdom of love : (...) tenth walk. . (shrink)

According to the prevailing opinion, the classical formulation of the principle of the sovereignty of the people is found in Rousseau. Against that view, this article argues that Marsilius of Padua and Locke should be regarded as earlier pioneers and important forerunners of this principle. To demonstrate this thesis, the paper examines Marsilius’s conception of the “human legislator” and Locke’s ideas on legislation, representation, and on the limitation of the legislative power. Though Locke excludes the majority of the people from (...) the right to be represented in the legislative power, his concept of this “supreme power” is progressive compared to the conceptions of “sovereignty” found in Bodin and Hobbes. Even for Rousseau, women are still excluded from the sovereignty of the people. This is a strong argument to include Locke and Marsilius in the history of the idea of the sovereignty of the people. (shrink)

The Life of Wisdom in Rousseau's "Reveries of the Solitary Walker" is the first complete exegesis and interpretation of Rousseau's final and culminating work, showing its full philosophic and moral teaching. The Reveries has been celebrated as a work of literature that is an acknowledged acme of French prose writing. Thomas L. Pangle argues that this aesthetic appreciation necessitates an in-depth interpretation of the writing's complex and multileveled intended teaching about the normatively best way of life—and how essential this is (...) for a work that was initially bewildering. Rousseau stands out among modern political philosophers in that he restored, to political philosophy, what Socrates and his students (from Plato and Xenophon through Aristotle and the Stoics and Cicero) had made central—and that the previous modern, Enlightenment philosophers had eclipsed: the study of the life and soul of the exemplary, independent sage, as possessor of "human wisdom." Rousseau made this again the supreme theme and source of norms for political philosophy and for humanity's moral as well as civic existence. In his analysis of The Reveries, Pangle uncovers Rousseau's most profound exploration and articulation of his own life, personality, soul, and thought as "the man of nature enlightened by reason." He describes, in Rousseau's final work, the fullest embodiment of the experiential wisdom from which flows and to which points Rousseau's political and moral philosophy, his theology, and his musical and literary art. (shrink)

Rousseau's God offers a comprehensive interpretation of Rousseau's theological and religious writings, both in themselves and in relation to his philosophy of the natural goodness of man. John T. Scott argues that there is a complicated relationship between Rousseau's philosophy, on the one hand, and his theological and religious thought. This relationship revolves around two oppositions: first, between the attributes and psychological needs of natural man and social or moral man; second, between the criteria of truth and utility for evaluating (...) theological and religious doctrines. In short, because the justification of nature through the natural goodness of man does not suffice for developed humans, Rousseau offers theological and religious doctrines which are less true than useful, psychologically, morally, or politically. (shrink)

In the biographies of David Hume, Horace Walpole’s name has been memorialised as the author of a forged letter assuming the identity of the King of Prussia. However, in the letter, Walpole’s scorn was directed against not only Rousseau, but also other French philosophes and, possibly, even Hume. Walpole drew a line between himself and the ‘pedants and pretended philosophers’, although he sometimes blurred the distinction between the two by considering an author or ‘man of letters’ synonymous with a ‘philosopher’. (...) Walpole broached his lifelong stricture on modern pretentious philosophers to Hume in one of his letters, just after the Concise Account was published. Walpole’s thorough contempt for French philosophers appeared to Hume as a Rousseauian, anti-philosophical stance. In his reply, Hume attempted to advocate his thesis of intellectual improvement and moral cultivation. Meanwhile, in another letter written around the same time, Hume kept away from Turgot’s sanguine view of human progress. The distance that Walpole maintains between himself and the philosophers—through the Hume-Rousseau affair—casts a long shadow on his evaluations of Hume and his historical works, and leads to their differing assessments of the standpoint of philosophers in the age of lumières. (shrink)

Increasing attention has been paid to Platonism in Rousseau’s moral and political thought; however, there has been incomplete consideration of his annotated Platonis Operum – a Ficino Latin translation. Addressing this lacuna, the article details Rousseau’s study of Plato’s works. It can be shown that Rousseau’s reading of Plato commenced no earlier than the summer of 1737 during his residence at Les Charmettes. At this time, Rousseau had been considering a set of largely seventeenth-century philosophical texts, which allows contextualisation of (...) his encounter with Plato and the themes he drew upon. As part of a cluster of intellectual activities, Rousseau canvassed Platonic tropes of sublimated Eros and disinterestedness. Meanwhile, he conceptualised ideas as objects of the understanding typical of Locke and a seventeenth-century discourse known as the ‘way of ideas’. These interests challenge existing accounts of Rousseau’s Platonism; moreover, Rousseau’s mature works attempt to reconcile Platonic beliefs on sublime love with ideas conceptualised under a demi-Lockean episteme. (shrink)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's works are often a touchstone and inspiration for many when it comes to thinking carefully about domination. We find Rousseau-inspired analyses across a wide range of political theories centering the concept of domination, from republicanism, liberalism, and Marxism to critical theory, feminisms, and beyond. This article aims to raise questions about a powerful, prevailing, and compelling reading of Rousseau's conception of domination. Beyond that, I hope to offer further insight into the components of his view of domination by (...) centering his account of sexuality as a domination/subordination relation. Ultimately, I suggest that Rousseau's considered view is that domination is a matter of being in a dependency relation. In other words, to be dependent upon others (whether a particular other or group of others) is sufficient for being dominated. However, not all domination relations are illegitimate. Both sexuality and the specific case of forming a social compact are sites of domination relations that can be rendered legitimate under certain conditions. (shrink)

In Emile, Rousseau advances significant ideas about language, language learning and teaching: He posits a universal natural language that develops as the child matures; focuses on ‘private’ words invented by children, on the challenge facing children in their understanding of exceptions to general rules of the mother tongue and on recommended methods of teaching the mother tongue. The paper explores these notions, which feature at the end of Book I of Emile. It seeks to explain and interpret them as postulations (...) regarding language, language learning and teaching and, moreover, to show how they relate to Rousseau's general principles of education. (shrink)

This article undertakes a comparative study of the conjectural histories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Ferguson, focusing on the convergences in the moral and political ideals expressed and grounded in these histories. In comparison with Scots like Adam Smith and John Millar, the conjectural histories of Ferguson and Rousseau follow a similar historical trajectory as regards the development and progress of commercial, political and cultural arts. However, their assessment of the moral progress of humanity does not, or in a much (...) more limited way than in Smith and Millar, correlate with this trajectory. Rousseau and Ferguson see a candour and vigour in savage and barbarian societies that is much less easily supported by the complex socio-economic framework of modern, commercial societies. It is argued that the convergences in their conjectural histories arise from a similar fusion of these histories with Stoic and republican perspectives. While Rousseau and Ferguson do not see history as cyclical, they think that the forces that push towards moral decline are strong and can, on the political level, only be countered by firm republican policies. Furthermore, their shared Stoic ideal of the life lived according to nature informs their solutions for modern societies. (shrink)

This article undertakes a comparative study of the conjectural histories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Ferguson, focusing on the convergences in the moral and political ideals expressed and grounded in these histories. In comparison with Scots like Adam Smith and John Millar, the conjectural histories of Ferguson and Rousseau follow a similar historical trajectory as regards the development and progress of commercial, political and cultural arts. However, their assessment of the moral progress of humanity does not, or in a much (...) more limited way than in Smith and Millar, correlate with this trajectory. Rousseau and Ferguson see a candour and vigour in savage and barbarian societies that is much less easily supported by the complex socio-economic framework of modern, commercial societies. It is argued that the convergences in their conjectural histories arise from a similar fusion of these histories with Stoic and republican perspectives. While Rousseau and Ferguson do not see history as cyclical, they think that the forces that push towards moral decline are strong and can, on the political level, only be countered by firm republican policies. Furthermore, their shared Stoic ideal of the life lived according to nature informs their solutions for modern societies. (shrink)

For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, freedom functions as a foundational value for his entire political philosophy. Parallel to this emphasis is his deep and abiding condemnation of “slavery”, at least the slavery that he claims marked the social existence of his European contemporaries living under unrepresentative monarchical systems. However, the striking aspect of Rousseau's work is his virtually complete silence concerning the institution of chattel slavery of his day. Despite his ubiquitous condemnation of the “slavery” of his “civilized” contemporaries, Rousseau wrote next (...) to nothing about the actual enslavement of millions of people who pervaded the social landscape of the European–African–American triangle in the 18th century. In this paper, I trace out the various passages in Rousseau that could be seen as touching on the subject of contemporary slavery practices and show how very scant they were. I also discuss his views on the relation between climate, character, and persons' fitness for democratic forms of government (and hence freedom). I combine these points to draw particular lessons about the dangers of neglect and exclusion inherent in Rousseau's views of democratic freedom, suggesting how similar dangers lurk for contemporary visions of democracy inspired by his views. (shrink)

In 2016, the Five Stars Movement (5SM), one of the parties currently in power in Italy, launched the ‘Rousseau platform’. This is a platform meant to enhance direct democracy, transparency and the real participation of the people in the making of laws, policies and political proposals. Although ennobled with the name of Rousseau, the 5SM’s redemptive promise has been strongly criticised in the public sphere for being irresponsible and ideological. Political realism, I will argue, can perform both a diagnostic and (...) a corrective task, by providing some tools to unveil populist distortions and by offering more solid grounds for political opponents’ critique. Three aspects of realism, in particular, will be pointed out as remedies against populist drifts. First, anti-moralism, complemented by anti-utopianism and contextualism, criticises the populists’ moralistic picture of politics, its anti-pluralistic attitude and its rejection of the role of experts in politics. Second, the Weberian ethic of responsibility offers standards to assess politicians’ actions, instead of embracing the populist aversion towards any professional politician; besides, it contrasts the populist image of politics as a derogatory activity. Finally, realism as ideology critique unveils the distorting narratives underlying populist propaganda and fostering uncritical support. (shrink)

In the lecture of December 16, 1980, Deleuze proposes a cross-reading of Spinoza and Rousseau. First, Deleuze reinterprets Rousseau’s morality in the light of Spinoza’s critique of ‘morality’ based on the opposition of good and evil; second, and reciprocally, he rereads Spinoza’s practical and ethical philosophy from a concept extracted from Rousseau’s work: that of the ‘materialism of the wise’. According to Deleuze, this ‘practical materialism’ evoked by Rousseau, consisting of both ‘determinism’ and ‘sensualism’, has a Spinozist inspiration, insofar as (...) it has an amoralist dimension, close to the critique of morality developed in the Ethics. But on the other hand, Rousseau’s ‘materialism of the wise’ allows us, conversely, to reread the Spinozist explanation of the conquest of freedom, by revealing the presence of practical principles very close to those of Rousseau’s ethical materialism. The cross-reading of Spinoza and Rousseau thus presents a double aim: on the one hand, to identify the presence of amoralist themes and issues in Rousseau’s work; on the other, to reveal the existence of materialist principles in the Spinozist ethical itinerary. (shrink)

Objetiva-se fazer uma breve explanação sobre a problemática da representação teatral e os seus efeitos sobre os espectadores a partir do caráter etnológico, através da crítica realizada pelo filósofo Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Fundamenta-se_ _com base na obra _Carta a D’Alembert sobre os espetáculos. _Nesta obra, Rousseau apresenta uma crítica à representação social através do teatro francês do século XVIII. Na _Carta _o autor discorre toda sua crítica ao teatro francês do século XVIII e expressa as razões para não fundar uma (...) companhia de teatro em Genebra, atribuindo aos jogos e espetáculos cívicos uma importância pedagógica em oposição aos espetáculos teatrais produzidos na época. Assim, iremos, no presente artigo, tratar sobre essa dualidade entre ser e parecer que se evidencia como um jogo de oposição entre uma sociedade corrompida pelos espetáculos teatrais e outra livre dos efeitos corruptores da cena teatral. Nessa última, o único espetáculo possível são as festas populares. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Despite being generally recognised as Camus’ most important philosophical essay, L’Homme révolté is rather neglected in the scholarship and enjoys a limited readership, especially among Anglophone critics and readers – a fact brightly reflected in the questionable quality of the only English translation, by Anthony Bower, and in the decision of Hamish Hamilton and Penguin, Camus’ publishers in the UK, to cut about thirty pages of text from their edition, ‘in the interests of economy.’. This essay examines one brief (...) but crucially important section of L’Homme révolté concerned with Rousseau’s Du contrat social. It explores the centrality of Camus’ analysis of Rousseau’s essay and its influence on the French Revolution to the arguments of L’Homme révolté, especially as these pertain to political or revolutionary violence. It also examines in close detail some striking parallels between Camus’ analysis of Rousseau and that found in essays by Isaiah Berlin and Philip Pettit. (shrink)

Both Rousseau and Charles Taylor are well-known for their support of positive freedom. However, Taylor criticizes Rousseau’s positive freedom and the general will for inducing the worst form of hom...

Game theory has proven useful in clarifying Hobbes’s argument that the state of nature will inevitably devolve into a state of war. Mathematically-leaning philosophers, however, have paid little attention to Rousseau’s depiction of the state of nature as a peaceful, asocial state of solitary wanderers. This paper articulates Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes in formal terms, which pinpoints two crucial issues in Hobbes’s account: the lack of an exit option and an unrealistic depiction of human nature. Building upon recent game-theoretic treatments (...) of Hobbes, we first construct a model that incorporates Rousseau’s criticisms by permitting an exit option and endogenizing human preferences and capacities. Second, we draw out the implications of Rousseau’s analysis for the question of political authority, which cannot be answered, as Hobbes believed, by invoking a hypothetical state of nature. (shrink)

La puissance de la pensée de Rousseau ne se mesure pas seulement à la grandeur de ses livres, mais également à la fécondité des interprétations que ces derniers suscitent. Une pensée profondément philosophique ne fait pas qu’instituer un dialogue privé et privilégié entre un auteur et son lecteur, mais elle permet aussi d’ouvrir un espace discursif polyphonique qu’instaure toute une communauté de lecteurs et d’exégètes eux-mêmes en dialogue les uns avec les autres. Le livre du philosophe italien Francesco Boccolari, _Rousseau_ (...) _la voix passionnée, Force expressive et affections sociales dans_ _l’_Essai sur l’origine des langues traduit, de manière exemplaire, ce double héritage et constitue, de ce point de vue, un modèle du genre. À l’écoute des textes de Rousseau, Boccolari inscrit aussi sa réflexion dans la filiation de grands spécialistes du philosophe genevois, notamment Gabrielle Radica, dont il prolonge la réflexion (p. 123), Céline Spector (qui a co-dirigé son travail de doctorat a... (shrink)

La puissance de la pensée de Rousseau ne se mesure pas seulement à la grandeur de ses livres, mais également à la fécondité des interprétations que ces derniers suscitent. Une pensée profondément philosophique ne fait pas qu’instituer un dialogue privé et privilégié entre un auteur et son lecteur, mais elle permet aussi d’ouvrir un espace discursif polyphonique qu’instaure toute une communauté de lecteurs et d’exégètes eux-mêmes en dialogue les uns avec les autres. Le livre du philosophe italien Francesco Boccolari, _Rousseau_ (...) _la voix passionnée, Force expressive et affections sociales dans_ _l’_Essai sur l’origine des langues traduit, de manière exemplaire, ce double héritage et constitue, de ce point de vue, un modèle du genre. À l’écoute des textes de Rousseau, Boccolari inscrit aussi sa réflexion dans la filiation de grands spécialistes du philosophe genevois, notamment Gabrielle Radica, dont il prolonge la réflexion (p. 123), Céline Spector (qui a co-dirigé son travail de doctorat a... (shrink)

La puissance de la pensée de Rousseau ne se mesure pas seulement à la grandeur de ses livres, mais également à la fécondité des interprétations que ces derniers suscitent. Une pensée profondément philosophique ne fait pas qu’instituer un dialogue privé et privilégié entre un auteur et son lecteur, mais elle permet aussi d’ouvrir un espace discursif polyphonique qu’instaure toute une communauté de lecteurs et d’exégètes eux-mêmes en dialogue les uns avec les autres. Le livre du philosophe italien Francesco Boccolari, _Rousseau_ (...) _la voix passionnée, Force expressive et affections sociales dans_ _l’_Essai sur l’origine des langues traduit, de manière exemplaire, ce double héritage et constitue, de ce point de vue, un modèle du genre. À l’écoute des textes de Rousseau, Boccolari inscrit aussi sa réflexion dans la filiation de grands spécialistes du philosophe genevois, notamment Gabrielle Radica, dont il prolonge la réflexion (p. 123), Céline Spector (qui a co-dirigé son travail de doctorat a... (shrink)

This paper primarily aims at conceptualizing a new philosophical approach to literature education, one that we—in the vein of certain pedagogical trends—propose to call “thing-centered”. Point of departure is the ongoing confrontation with a two-sided educational problem: on the one hand, the confrontation with the steady decline of younger generations’ engagements with ‘classical’ literature; on the other hand, that with the unsatisfactory answers which either accept this development, in light of the world’s irresistible digitization, or try overcoming it through a (...) more student-centered, ‘biographical’ appropriation of literature. Beyond the more immediate didactical difficulties which this two-fold problem poses, we ask ourselves the question whether it is not time for a more fundamental renewal of our understanding of literature’s contemporary educational significance. In answering this question, for which we turn to such diverse authors as Rousseau, Deleuze and Calvino, it is argued that if education is to continue its care for both classical literacy and literary classics—and not so much against as in relation to ascending digital literacies—a more radically immanent, thing-centered perspective is likely to prove the most sustainable, in the sense of enabling truly new, ‘care-ful’ literary-educational practices to emerge. (shrink)

Rousseau and Nietzsche are philosophers between whom it is difficult to establish a dialogue that arises directly from their works, and yet there are connections between their philosophies, or in Nietzsche’s terms, perspectives, which open up a common issue: the question of evaluation. But to what does evaluation refer, to what value, or to the value of what does it refer? We want to show that it is an evaluation of the present in which thought takes place, which returns as (...) memory of both the continuity of the trace and its interruptions. Memory, however, returns either as ressentiment and a will to revenge, that is, memory’s own negation of itself, because it is never adequate, or as an affirmation of what is remembered and what returns in memory, including discontinuities. In response to this problem, Rousseau invents his proto-concept of the heart, which appears in more or less conceptual form in both his autobiographical and political-theoretical works, without Rousseau ever granting it a place in his philosophy. We argue that the heart acquires its conceptuality only when we recognise it as a central and plastic principle of his thought, corresponding structurally to Nietzsche’s will to power. Deleuze describes the latter as a plastic principle of Nietzsche’s philosophy, the principle of evaluating and re-evaluating values, and the principle of evaluating what can and must recur in thought. (shrink)

Although Rousseau substitutes the norm of political law for that of natural law, his position cannot be assimilated to either positivism or to pure proceduralism. The norm of justice, immanent in the social contract, produces a norm external to all established order and makes assessing the justice of societies possible. If consent is legitimate only on the condition of real reciprocity, then the limits of consent lie in the fact that what is lost cannot be compensated or restituted through any (...) other form. The rights of humanity can then be defined as the inalienable rights of every individual: the rights to life and to equal freedom. This contribution will define the right of resistance which can be conceived from the rights of humanity, as well as the contesting attitudes of the established order that Rousseau conceives. (shrink)

Transcending an often outraged opposition between the two authors, this volume reassesses the legacy of Locke's thought in that of Rousseau, in all the areas of his philosophy (personal identity, epistemology, medicine, morality, pedagogy, economics, politics). Beyond an intellectual history, this collected volume highlights the fruitful critical dialogue that Rousseau maintains with Locke, while identifying the ways in which the Citizen of Geneva distorted his predecessor’s thought. While establishing the author of Emile’s debt to the ‘sage Locke’, the volume also (...) discerns the relevance of Rousseau’s objections to Lockian philosophy. In what sense did Rousseau establish his own philosophy on ‘common principles’ to those of Locke? How does he subvert the Essay Concerning Human Understanding or the Thoughts Concerning Education? What are the blind spots in Locke’s philosophy that Rousseau highlights and, conversely, the limits of Rousseau’s criticism of Locke? These are the main aspects of this volume, which brings together scholars in philosophy and literature, on Rousseau and Locke. (shrink)

The present work aims at studying the myth of Gyges’ ring from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s work The Reveries of a solitary Walker. Gyges’ ring is a magic artefact, allowing its bearer to be visible or invisible according to his will. The ring’s myth is portraited for the first time in the Second Book of Plato’s Republic. Thusly, our article is divided in two parts: the first one presents an analysis of the Republic observing its challenge of justice and the relation it (...) holds with the art of ruling; the second part presents an investigation of Rousseau’s work to show how he had absorbed the ring’s myth. The main objective of our work is the comparison between Plato’s and Rousseau’s view of Gyges’ ring, and the investigation of the concept of nature as one of the pillars of the social contract theory. As results we present the way Rousseau answers to the challenge of justice from the concept of justice within the soul, whereas no harm could be done to others. In his reflexion on the ring, Rousseau seems to point at the existence of an interior justice according to its “natural inclination”, opposite to any obligation of the positive law among men. Therefore, one needs to observe that Rousseau is defending justice according to the natural rights holding that any contract established among men should be according to nature. This agrees with our thesis of a possible political ontology based on firstly, the concept of a universal justice, and secondly, on the art of ruling according to justice. (shrink)