The rise of modern science created a crisis for Western moral and political philosophy, which had theretofore relied either on Christian theology or Aristotelian natural teleology as guarantors of an objective standard for "the good life." This book examines Rousseau's effort to show how and why, despite this challenge from science, nature can remain a standard for human behavior. While recognizing an original goodness in human being in the state of nature, Rousseau knew this to be too low a standard (...) and promoted the idea of "the natural man living in the state of society," notably in _Emile_. Laurence Cooper shows how, for Rousseau, conscience—understood as the "love of order"—functions as the agent whereby simple savage sentiment is sublimated into a more refined "civilized naturalness" to which all people can aspire. (shrink)

Plutarch tells the story of a man who plucked a nightingale and finding but little to eat exclaimed: "You are just a voice and nothing more." Plucking the feathers of meaning that cover the voice, dismantling the body from which the voice seems to emanate, resisting the Sirens' song of fascination with the voice, concentrating on "the voice and nothing more": this is the difficult task that philosopher Mladen Dolar relentlessly pursues in this seminal work.The voice did not figure as (...) a major philosophical topic until the 1960s, when Derrida and Lacan separately proposed it as a central theoretical concern. In A Voice and Nothing More Dolar goes beyond Derrida's idea of "phonocentrism" and revives and develops Lacan's claim that the voice is one of the paramount embodiments of the psychoanalytic object. Dolar proposes that, apart from the two commonly understood uses of the voice as a vehicle of meaning and as a source of aesthetic admiration, there is a third level of understanding: the voice as an object that can be seen as the lever of thought. He investigates the object voice on a number of different levels--the linguistics of the voice, the metaphysics of the voice, the ethics of the voice, the paradoxical relation between the voice and the body, the politics of the voice--and he scrutinizes the uses of the voice in Freud and Kafka. With this foundational work, Dolar gives us a philosophically grounded theory of the voice as a Lacanian object-cause. (shrink)

This book studies a central but hitherto neglected aspect of Rousseau's political thought: the concept of social order and its implications for the ideal society which he envisages. The antithesis between order and disorder is a fundamental theme in Rousseau's work, and the author takes it as the basis for this study. In contrast with a widely held interpretation of Rousseau's philosophy, Professor Viroli argues that natural and political order are by no means the same for Rousseau. He explores the (...) differences and interrelations between the different types of order which Rousseau describes, and shows how the philosopher constructed his final doctrine of the just society, which can be based only on every citizen's voluntary and knowing acceptance of the social contract and on the promotion of virtue above ambition. The author also shows the extent of Rousseau's debt to the republican tradition, and above all to Machiavelli, and revises the image of Rousseau as a disciple of the natural-law school. (shrink)

Rousseau's responses to the religious and political critics of his works.

La dialectique de l'espoir et de l'existence à laquelle est consacrée ce second volume s'inscrit dans le cadre du premier grand remède proposé par JA. Rousseau la réforme des mœurs domestiques. On pourrait penser que l'analyse de La Nouvelle Héloïse délivre l'esprit des difficultés suscitées par la théorie de l'Etat de nature. Mais la démarche qu'il convient de suivre est encore plus délicate, plus nuancée : toute la richesse intime de l'homme vivant dans la simplicité selon les lois de la (...) nature et de la communauté se dévoile et fait surgir des antithèses déchirantes. Rousseau a composé une musique aussi vraie qu'inconnue et que rien n'égale. Il reste que la tension de l'espoir et de l'existence s'effondrera et qu'il n'existe point de bonne solution à la question du mal. Ce drame nerveux conduira Rousseau vers une solitude qu'il ne voulut jamais. Ce chemin implacable vers une solitude à laquelle il devait se résigner est l'objet du troisième volume. (shrink)

Timothy O'Hagan investigates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's writings concerning the formation of humanity, of the individual and of the citizen, in his three master works, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men , The Emile , and The Social Contract . He explores Rousseau's reflections on developmental psychology, the nature of the political order, relations between the sexes, language and religion. O'Hagan gives Rousseau's arguments a close and sympathetic reading. He writes as a philosopher, not a historian, yet he never (...) loses sight of the cultural context of Rousseau's work. (shrink)

With this volume, Werner Pluhar completes his work on Kant's three Critiques, an accomplishment unique among English language translators of Kant. At once accurate, fluent, and accessible, Pluhar's rendition of the Critique of Practical Reason meets the standards set in his widely respected translations of the Critique of Judgement (1987) and the Critique of Pure Reason (1996).

Timothy O'Hagan investigates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's writings concerning the formation of humanity, of the individual and of the citizen in his three master works: the _Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men_, _Emile _and the _Social Contract_. He explores Rousseau's reflections on the sexes, language and religion. O'Hagan gives Rousseau's arguments a close and sympathetic reading. He writes as a philosopher, not a historian, yet he never loses sight of the cultural context of Rousseau's work.

In this superb introduction, Nicholas Dent covers the whole of Rousseau's thought. Beginning with a helpful overview of Rousseau's life and works, he introduces and assesses Rousseau's central ideas and arguments. These include the corruption of modern civilization, the state of nature, his famous theories of _amour de soi _and _amour propre_, education, and his famous work _Emile_. He gives particular attention to Rousseau's theories of democracy and freedom found in his most celebrated work, _The Social Contract_, and explains what (...) Rousseau meant by the 'general will'. (shrink)

Although many commentators on Rousseau’s philosophy have noted its affinities with Platonism and acknowledged the debt that Rousseau himself expressed to Plato on numerous occasions, David Williams is the first to offer a thoroughgoing, systematic examination of this linkage. His contributions to the scholarship on Rousseau in this book are threefold: he enters the debate over whether Rousseau is a Hobbesian or a Platonist with a decisive argument supporting the latter position; he tackles from a new angle the ever-challenging question (...) of unity in Rousseau’s thought; and he explores the dynamic metaphor of the chain throughout Rousseau’s writings as a key to understanding them as inspired by Platonism. The book is organized into three main parts. The first sketches the background of Platonism and materialist positivism in modern European metaphysics and political philosophy that provided the context for Rousseau’s intellectual development. The second examines Rousseau’s choice of Platonism over positivism and its consequences for his philosophy generally. The third addresses the legacy of Rousseau’s thought and its appropriation by Kant, Marx, and Foucault, suggesting that in an age where materialism and relativism are rife, Rousseau may have much to teach us about how we view our own society and can engage in constructive critique of it. (shrink)