Questions tagged [rousseau]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) was a Genevan philosopher.
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Inquiring about Perspectives on the Theory of "the People" as a Political Concept
Seeking your insights and recommendations regarding a specific aspect of political philosophy - the theory of "the People."
I am currently exploring various perspectives on this concept and ...
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A question about Rousseau's conception of freedom
In his Lettres écrites de la montagne, Rousseau writes this:
It's all very well to confuse independence with freedom. The two things are so different that they are even mutually exclusive. When people ...
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Could the debate between Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment be boiled down to the nature of the human species concerning science and technology?
Is the debate between the Enlightenment philosophy and the Rousseauist, or anti-Enlightenment philosophy, be boiled down on a debate concerning the nature of the human in relation to science and ...
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Rousseau's Social Contract and the state of nature
According to Rousseau, the human being is naturally good, and lived peacefully before the advent of civilization.
If it is the case, then why does Rousseau advocate for a social contract which purpose ...
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English translation of "Les meditations metaphysiques de J. J. Rousseau (Paris: Vrin, 1970)"
Reading Theory of Metaphor in Rousseau's Second Discourse and I came across this passage:
Very few informed readers today would still maintain that Rousseau's
state of nature is an empirical reality, ...
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Rousseau Experts, Assemble! (to identify a quote)
I know this is a long shot, but I am looking for a quote from Rousseau. I heard it a long time ago and have looked for it many times, but I have not been able to find it.
In the quote (only about 1-to-...
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Regarding Rousseau's Right to Conquest
In book I chapter 4 of Rousseau's social contract. While discussing the topic of right to conquest I didn't quite understand what Rousseau meant by saying that individuals are in constant state of war ...
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What were the "paradoxes of Rousseau"?
John Stuart Mill (1859, On Liberty):
Thus, in the eighteenth century, when nearly all the instructed, and all those of the uninstructed who were led by them, were lost in admiration of what is called ...
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Who does 'men of letters' refer to?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his discourse on the origin of inequality and discourse on the arts and sciences, mentioned the 'men of letters', men he associated with negative connotations. However, who ...
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What are the main differences and similarities between Rousseau and Kant's moral philosophy?
Main differences and similarities between Rousseau and Kant, especially in the subjects of justice, morality and also how Rousseau influenced Kant.
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Can someone expand Rousseau's proper definition of war?
Rousseau, in his 'Of the Social Contract', chapter IV, 'Slavery', puts that:
Men, from the mere fact that, while they are living in their primitive
independence, they have no mutual relations ...
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Which English translation of "The Social Contract" is better?
I was trying to read Rousseau's The Social Contract and Discourses. On archive.org I found a copy of the Everyman's Library version translated by G.D.H. Cole (1913). However, on amazon.com, a reviewer ...
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What is "State" for Rousseau?
I guess this simple question has a simple answer, but I have not found it.
I am reading "The Social Contract" and am really loving it. I understand Rousseau's distinction of sovereign and government....
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Natural sociality in Rousseau and Aristotle
Are we social or solitary by Rousseau's reckoning? How do his arguments stand in relation to Aristotle's idea of humans as essentially social or political?
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what does Bertrand Russell mean by saying this
he said on the preface of "history of western philosophy":
"the student of Rousseau may have difficulty in doing justice to his connection with the Sparta of Plato and Plutarch."
what does this mean?
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Can we separate ideas (utilitarianism, social contract) from their primary associated philosophers (Mill, Rousseau)?
I've run into some difficulty discussing utilitarianism and the social contract because the typical response is something specific to Mill or Rousseau. It's not quite ad hominem argument -- they're ...
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On Rousseau's consent and legitimacy
Right now I'm reading Rousseau's Second Discourse and Discourse on Political Economy. Rousseau describes the founding of civil society in the Second Discourse as a step that everyone agrees to, and ...
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Did Rousseau say that equality of conditions is not possible without slavery?
I just read What is Property, written in 1840 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
At the end of the book he attributes a paraphrased quote to Jean-Jaques Rousseau:
The communistic republic of Plato ...
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Rousseau and civil society
How does Rousseau account for the emergence of civil society?--what is the change, or more precisely, the transformation of material relations, that accounts for the founding of society in a robust ...
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What major innovations in social contract theory did Rousseau make compared to that of Plato's Crito?
In Plato's dialogue, Crito, where Socrates is urged by Crito to flee before he is executed, Socrates refuses and outlines a theory of social contact between a citizen and the city.
I had understood ...
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Is the Republic of Thiascala a figment of Rousseaus imagination?
In the notes to Book II of the Social Contract, Rousseau remarks:
"The Republic of Thiascala, enclosed by the Mexican Empire, preferred doing without salt to buying from the Mexicans, or even getting ...
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Does the history of modern Europe bear out Rousseau' assertion that the rule of the many cannot follow that of the few?
Rousseau writes, in Book 3, section 10 of the Contract (The abuse of government and its propensity to degenerate):
There are two general courses by which government degenerates: i.e., when it ...