Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 150403547X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 89
Book Description
A fascinating examination of the relationship between civilization and inequality from one of history’s greatest minds The first man to erect a fence around a piece of land and declare it his own founded civil society—and doomed mankind to millennia of war and famine. The dawn of modern civilization, argues Jean-Jacques Rousseau in this essential treatise on human nature, was also the beginning of inequality. One of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, Rousseau based his work in compassion for his fellow man. The great crime of despotism, he believed, was the raising of the cruel above the weak. In this landmark text, he spells out the antidote for man’s ills: a compassionate revolution to pull up the fences and restore the balance of mankind. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Author: Professor of Philosophy and Viola Manderfeld Professor of German Frederick Neuhouser Publisher: ISBN: 9781316009345 Category : Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
This book evaluates Rousseau's arguments concerning why inequality exists in society and why it poses dangers to human well-being.
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Publisher: Good Press ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 76
Book Description
Rousseau first exposes in Discourse on the Origin of Inequality his conception of a human state of nature, presented as a philosophical fiction and of human perfectibility, an early idea of progress. He then explains the way, according to him, people may have established civil society, which leads him to present private property as the original source and basis of all inequality. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th century, mainly active in France. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment across Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the overall development of modern political and educational thought.
Author: Frederick Neuhouser Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191562211 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 293
Book Description
This book is the first comprehensive study of Rousseau's rich and complex theory of the type of self-love (amour propre ) that, for him, marks the central difference between humans and the beasts. Amour propre is the passion that drives human individuals to seek the esteem, approval, admiration, or love—the recognition —of their fellow beings. Neuhouser reconstructs Rousseau's understanding of what the drive for recognition is, why it is so problematic, and how its presence opens up far-reaching developmental possibilities for creatures that possess it. One of Rousseau's central theses is that amour propre in its corrupted, manifestations—pride or vanity—is the principal source of an array of evils so widespread that they can easily appear to be necessary features of the human condition: enslavement, conflict, vice, misery, and self-estrangement. Yet Rousseau also argues that solving these problems depends not on suppressing or overcoming the drive for recognition but on cultivating it so that it contributes positively to the achievement of freedom, peace, virtue, happiness, and unalienated selfhood. Indeed, Rousseau goes so far as to claim that, despite its many dangers, the need for recognition is a condition of nearly everything that makes human life valuable and that elevates it above mere animal existence: rationality, morality, freedom—subjectivity itself—would be impossible for humans if it were not for amour propre and the relations to others it impels us to establish.
Author: Joseph de Maistre Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP ISBN: 077356604X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 245
Book Description
On the State of Nature and On the Sovereignty of the People are Maistre's most comprehensive treatment of Rousseau's ideas and his most sustained critique of the ideological foundations of the revolution. On the State of Nature, a detailed critique of Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality, focuses on Rousseau's belief in the natural goodness of man; On the Sovereignty of the People, a critique of Social Contract, explores Rousseau's theory of popular sovereignty. In Maistre's eyes Rousseau encouraged the socially destructive individualism that lay at the heart of the French Revolution. However, the essays reveal some surprising ambiguities in the relationship between two seminal thinkers who are usually thought of as polar opposites, suggesting that Maistre's vision was more akin to Rousseau's than he would have admitted. Against Rousseau offers valuable insights into the evolution of Maistre's counter-revolutionary ideas during the crucial years of 1792-97 and illustrates his remarkable insights into society and politics. It is vital to any consideration of his thought or the counter-revolutionary movement in eighteenth-century France.
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Publisher: DigiCat ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 76
Book Description
Rousseau first exposes in Discourse on the Origin of Inequality his conception of a human state of nature, presented as a philosophical fiction and of human perfectibility, an early idea of progress. He then explains the way, according to him, people may have established civil society, which leads him to present private property as the original source and basis of all inequality. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th century, mainly active in France. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment across Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the overall development of modern political and educational thought.
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Publisher: Hackett Publishing ISBN: 9780872201507 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 116
Book Description
Focuses on the cultural and intellectual milieu in which Rousseau operated. This title includes a select bibliography, a note on the text, a translator's note, and Rousseau's own "Notes on the Discourse."
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Publisher: ISBN: 9781977626929 Category : Languages : en Pages : 46
Book Description
Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men commonly known as the "Second Discourse", is a work by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was written in 1754 in response to a prize competition of the Academy of Dijon answering the prompt: What is the origin of inequality among people, and is it authorized by natural law?* Rousseau first exposes in this work his conception of a human state of nature, presented as a philosophical fiction (like a work by Thomas Hobbes, unlike those by John Locke), and of human perfectibility, an early idea of progress. He then explains the way people may have established civil society, which leads him to present private property as the original source and basis of all inequality.* Rousseau discusses two types of inequality: natural, or physical inequality, and ethical, or moral inequality. Natural inequality involves differences between one human's body and that of another-it is a product of nature. * Rousseau opines that human freedom does not mean the capacity to choose, which would require reason, but instead the ability to refrain from instinct. Only with such a capacity can humans acquire new habits and practices.* Rousseau claims natural man does not possess reason or language (in which reason's generation is rooted) or society-and these three things are mutually-conditioning, such that none can come into being without the others.* With primitive social existence (preceding civil society), humans gain a "love of well-being" ("amour propre") and most of the rest of Rousseau's account is based on this. Rousseau's critique of civil society is primarily based on psychological features of civil man, with amour propre("love of well-being" ) pushing individuals to compare themselves with others, to gain a sense of self corresponding to this, and to dissolve natural man's natural pity.* According to Rousseau, "The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society". But Rousseau then clarifies that this moment was presaged by a series of environmental and rational conditions that made it possible. For Rousseau, even the concept of private property required a series of other concepts in order to be formed.
Author: Michael Locke McLendon Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 0812295730 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 220
Book Description
In The Psychology of Inequality, Michael Locke McLendon looks to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's thought for insight into the personal and social pathologies that plague commercial and democratic societies. He emphasizes the way Rousseau appropriated and modified the notion of self-love, or amour-propre, found in Augustine and various early modern thinkers. McLendon traces the concept in Rousseau's work and reveals it to be a form of selfish vanity that mimics aspects of Homeric honor culture and, in the modern world, shapes the outlook of the wealthy and powerful as well as the underlying assumptions of meritocratic ideals. According to McLendon, Rousseau's elucidation of amour-propre describes a desire for glory and preeminence that can be dangerously antisocial, as those who believe themselves superior derive pleasure from dominating and even harming those they consider beneath them. Drawing on Rousseau's insights, McLendon asserts that certain forms of inequality, especially those associated with classical aristocracy and modern-day meritocracy, can corrupt the mindsets and personalities of people in socially disruptive ways. The Psychology of Inequality shows how amour-propre can be transformed into the demand for praise, whether or not one displays praiseworthy qualities, and demonstrates the ways in which this pathology continues to play a leading role in the psychology and politics of modern liberal democracies.
Author: Frederick Neuhouser
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Author: Professor of Philosophy and Viola Manderfeld Professor of German Frederick Neuhouser
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Author: Frederick Neuhouser
Author: Joseph de Maistre
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Author: Michael Locke McLendon