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Paul Strathern

Rousseau: Philosophy in an Hour

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Philosophy for busy people. Read a succinct account of the philosophy of Rousseau in just one hour.
In Rousseau we encounter a walking ego, a naked sensibility — his arguments are both deeply stirring and deeply inconsistent. Yet whilst his contemporaries Kant and Hume may have been superior academic philosophers, the sheer power of Rousseau’s ideas was unequalled in his time. It was he who encouraged the introduction of both liberty and irrationality into the public domain, lamenting how ‘man is born free but everywhere he is in chains’.
Here is a concise, expert account of Rousseau’s life and philosophical ideas — entertainingly written and easy to understand. Also included are selections from Rousseau’s work, suggested further reading, and chronologies that place Rousseau in the context of the broader scheme of philosophy.
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58 printed pages
Publication year
2012
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Quotes

  • Medionhas quoted4 years ago
    The initial aim of education should be to replace the child’s dependence upon adults with a healthy sense of its own independence. Instead of simply conforming to the wishes and ambitions imposed upon it by adults, the child should be allowed to cultivate its own faculties in accordance with its own development. As Rousseau puts it, “Nature wants children to pass through childhood before becoming men.” (As can be seen from the preceding quote, Rousseau’s children are male. This was not for the most part his intention in Émile.
  • Medionhas quoted4 years ago
    Mandeville pointed out that the virtues required by public life were precisely the opposite of the private behaviour required by Christianity. What Christianity condemned as vices were the very virtues that drove civil life: greed, self-interest, ambition, and vanity. As Mandeville put it: “private Vices are public Benefits.” While Rousseau didn’t go quite as far as this, he still saw the need for a civil religion.
  • Medionhas quoted4 years ago
    Amidst the vast spaces of the mountains, he would lose himself in reverie. “I do not think, I do not reason. I feel myself, with a kind of voluptuousness, possessed of the substance of the universe.”

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