This book reads Jean-Jacques Rousseau with a view toward deepening our understanding of many political issues alive today, including the place of women in society, the viability of traditional family ...structures, the role of religion and religious freedom in nations that are becoming ever more secular, and the proper conduct of American constitutional government. Rousseau has been among the most influential modern philosophers, and among the most misunderstood. The first great philosophic critic of the Enlightenment, he sought to revive political philosophy as it was practiced by Plato, and to make it useful in the modern world. His understanding of politics rests on deep and often prescient reflections about the nature of the human soul and the relationship between our animal origins and the achievements of civilization. This book demonstrates that the implications Rousseau drew from those reflections continue to deserve serious attention.
Frédéric Marty, Louise Dupin. Défendre l’égalité des sexes en 1750. (Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2021, 338 p. ISBN: 978-2-406-10925-9) et de l’ouvrage de Louise Dupin, Des Femmes. Discours ...préliminaire. Préface de Frédéric Marty (Paris, Éditions Payot & Rivages, 2022, 144 p. ISBN : 978-2-228-93116-8).
El presente artículo explica la génesis del discurso moral rousseauniano partiendo de la tesis de que su fundamento descansa en la premisa del amor al bien antes que en el conocimiento del bien. En ...esa perspectiva, y siguiendo un método interpretativo, se examinó la constitución de una sensibilidad de tipo moral, cuya génesis revela la existencia de ciertos principios innatos de justicia y de virtud inspirados en un ser superior, que interviene en el mundo moral. Palabras clave: moral; sensibilidad; bien; amor; ser superior. This article explains the genesis of the Rousseaunian moral discourse starting from the thesis that its foundation rests on the premise of the love of the good rather than on the knowledge of the good. In this perspective, and following an interpretative method, the constitution of a moral sensibility was examined, the genesis of which reveals the existence of certain innate principles of justice and virtue inspired by a superior being who intervenes in the moral world. Keywords: moral; sensibility; good; love; higher being.
Rousseau's Social Contract is a benchmark in political philosophy and has influenced moral and political thought since its publication. Rousseau and the Social Contract introduces and ...assesses:*Rousseau's life and the background of the Social Contract*The ideas and arguments of the Social Contract*Rousseau's continuing importance to politics and philosophyRousseau and the Social Contract will be essential reading for all students of philosophy and politics, and anyone coming to Rousseau for the first time.
Rousseau and Radical Democracy presents the first comprehensive examination of Rousseau's founding role in, and continuing relevance for, recent and influential theories of democracy. Kevin Inston ...demonstrates the actuality of Rousseau's thinking through an analysis of his deep connection with the groundbreaking work of contemporary European thinkers, including Lefort, Laclau and Mouffe. The book affirms Rousseau's centrality for current debates in democratic thought by showing how, contrary to common assumptions, his writings emphasise the openness and difference necessary for a dynamic mode of democracy committed to extending the principles of freedom and equality. By connecting Rousseau's philosophy with present-day thinking, Inston stresses the theoretical consistency of his political thought against those influential deconstructive readings of his work by thinkers such as Derrida and De Man. This book argues that the ambiguities and tensions in Rousseau actually form part of the logic of Rousseau's rigorous reflection on democracy that accepts the inherent incompleteness and uncertainty of any political project as the condition of freedom and change.
Among Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s chief preoccupations was the problem of self-interest implicit in all social relationships. A person with divided loyalties (i.e., to both himself and his cohorts) was, ...in Rousseau’s thinking, a divided person. According to John Warner’s Rousseau and the Problem of Human Relations, not only did Rousseau never solve this problem, he believed it was fundamentally unsolvable: social relationships could never restore wholeness to a self-interested human being. Warner traces his argument through the contours of Rousseau’s thought on three distinct types of relationships—sexual love, friendship, and civil or political association. Warner concludes that none of these, whether examined individually or together, provides a satisfactory resolution to the problem of human dividedness located at the center of Rousseau’s thinking.
Demokratibegrebet er i de senere år blevet nytænkt på forskellig vis af teoretikere som eksempelvis Jacques Rancière (1999, 2005) og Chantal Mouffe (2000). Karakteristisk for først og fremmest ...Rancières arbejde med begrebet er, at han kombinerer radikal og original nytænkning af dets semantik med inspirationen fra klassisk filosofi, først og fremmest Platon. I Rancières perspektiv har Platon netop (i modsætning til moderne demokratiteori) forstået, at demokrati tværtimod at være en styreform er det anarki, ethvert styre søger at fortrænge – det er netop derfor, han er antidemokrat.
Det er naturligvis interessant, at man kan bruge Platon til at udvikle moderne demokratiteori, selv om han står som en af filosofihistoriens mest indædte antidemokrater. Så meget desto mere interessant er det, hvad de få klassiske filosoffer, der faktisk har tilsluttet sig demokratiet som styreform, har at lære os i dag. Det er det spørgsmål, der skal belyses i det følgende, hvor Spinoza og Rousseau er i centrum.
På trods af åbenlyse forskelle mellem deres forfatterskaber, deler de to det afgørende fællestræk, at de er de første betydende filosoffer i den vestlige tradition, der argumenterer for demokratiet som styreform. Det gør Spinoza i sin Teologisk-Politiske Traktat fra 1670, Rousseau i Samfundspagten fra 1762. Det er i sig selv tankevækkende, at vi skal så langt op i tiden, før vi finder tænkere, der åbent anbefaler en styreform, der i dag almindeligvis ligefrem er definerende for politisk legitimitet, men siden Platon i Staten brændemærkede folkestyret som tøjlesløst anarki, havde man i den politiske filosofi taget afstand fra det – og det i en sådan grad, at Spinoza og Rousseau endnu langt op i 1800-tallet stod alene med deres synspunkt.
På baggrund af dette fællestræk kan det ikke undre, at der er en lang tradition for at sammenligne de to forfatterskaber. Det er da også ubestrideligt, at de er enige om meget, i særdeleshed når det gælder spørgsmålet om netop demokratiet. Alligevel vil fokus i det følgende ikke først og fremmest være på det, Spinoza og Rousseau har til fælles, men derimod på forskellene mellem dem. Konkret skal der gennem en marxistisk inspireret analyse argumenteres for, at en sammenligning af demokratiforståelsen hos de to forfattere viser, hvordan Spinozas tilgang er væsentligt mere radikal end Rousseaus, og derfor også mere interessant, når det handler om at udfordre og udvikle moderne demokratiteori.
Scholarly accounts of the training of pity in Jean‐Jacques Rousseau's Emile focus on how Emile's tutor activates the psychological mechanisms necessary for the feeling of pity in book 4 of the text. ...This account is inadequate, for it fails to show how Emile acquires the evaluative ability to make the judgment about who deserves pity as well as the willingness to adjudicate his own and others' interests. In this article, Wing Sze Leung argues that books 1 through 3 lay the foundation by developing in Emile the attitudes and dispositions that guide him in his judgment‐making about which kind of life he should pursue. Books 4 and 5 then develop Emile's ability to make interpersonal judgments of pity through habituated practice. By gradually cultivating Emile's sensitivity to the potential conflict between his self‐interests and others' well‐being, as well as the resolution to refrain from infringing on others' interests and to pursue the common good, Rousseau's long‐term educational project molds Emile's disposition to act as justice demands. The article concludes with a brief response to some criticisms about Rousseau's educational project.
PDF
