Ecrits entre 1772 et 1776, les trois dialogues de Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques apparaissent à première lecture comme une extension délirante des derniers livres des Confessions. Cette écriture du cauchemar repose en réalité sur une structure idéologique d'une extrême rigueur et révèle une logique fantasmatique d'une effrayante complexité, que l'on pourra comparer avec cet autre texte au sujet " abominable " qu'est Le Lévite d'Ephraïm, poème en prose composé par Rousseau sur la route de l'exil en juin 1762.

Frederick Watkins’ 1953 edition of Rousseau’s _Political Writings_ has long been noted for being fully accurate while representing much of Rousseau’s eloquence and elegance. It contains what is widely regarded as the finest English translation of _The Social Contract_, Rousseau’s greatest political treatise. In addition, this edition offers the best available translation of the late and important _Government of Poland_ and the only published English translation of the fragment _Constitutional Project for Corsica_, which, says Watkins, provides the clearest possible demonstration (...) of the practical implications of Rousseau’s political thought. (shrink)

This classroom edition includes On the Social Contract, the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, and the Preface to Narcissus. Each text has been newly translated and includes a full complement of explanatory notes. The editors’ introduction offers students diverse points of entry into some of the distinctive possibilities and challenges of each of these fundamental texts, as well as an introduction to Rousseau’s life and historical situation. The volume also includes annotated (...) appendices that help students to explore the origins and influences of Rousseau’s work, including excerpts from Hobbes, Pascal, Descartes, Mandeville, Diderot, Voltaire, Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant, Joseph de Maistre, Kant, Hegel, and Engels. (shrink)

The dawn of music semiology showcases the work of ten leading musicologists inspired by the work of Jean-Jacques Nattiez. Reflecting the energy and diversity of the young field of music semiology, chapters in this volume discuss music and gesture, the psychology of music, and the role of ethnotheory, and offer new research on topics as diverse as modeling folk polyphony, spatialization in the Darmstadt repertoire, Schenker's theory of musical content, and modernism from Wagner to Boulez.

The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is presented in two volumes, together forming the most comprehensive anthology of Rousseau's political writings in English. Volume II contains the later writings such as The Social Contract and a selection of Rousseau's letters on important aspects of his thought. The Social Contract has become Rousseau's most famous single work, but on publication was condemned by both the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities in France and Geneva. Rousseau fled and it is during this (...) period that he wrote some of his autobiographical works as well as political essays such as On the Government of Poland. This volume, like its predecessor, contains a comprehensive introduction, chronology and guide to further reading, and will enable students to obtain a full understanding of the writings of one of the world's greatest thinkers. (shrink)

One of Rousseau’s later and most puzzling works and never before available in English, this neglected autobiographical piece was the product of the philosopher’s old age and sense of persecution. Long viewed simply as evidence of his growing paranoia, it consists of three dialogues between a character named “Rousseau” and one identified only as “Frenchman” who discuss the bad reputation and works of an author named “Jean-Jacques.” Dialogues offers a fascinating retrospective of his literary career.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas about society, culture, and government are pivotal in the history of political thought. His works are as controversial as they are relevant today. This volume brings together three of Rousseau’s most important political writings—_The Social Contract and The First Discourse _and_ The Second Discourse _—and_ _presents essays by major scholars that shed light on the dimensions and implications of these texts. Susan Dunn’s introductory essay underlines the unity of Rousseau’s political thought and explains why his (...) ideas influenced Jacobin revolutionaries in France but repelled American revolutionaries across the ocean. Gita May’s essay discusses Rousseau as cultural critic. Robert N. Bellah explores Rousseau’s attempt to resolve the tension between the individual’s desire for freedom and the obligations that society imposes. David Bromwich analyzes Rousseau as a psychologist of the human self. And Conor Cruise O’Brien takes on the “noxious,” “deranged” Rousseau, excoriated by Edmund Burke but admired by Robespierre and Thomas Jefferson. Written from different, even opposing perspectives, these lucid essays convey a sense of the vital and contentious debate surrounding Rousseau and his legacy. For this edition Susan Dunn has provided a new translation of the _Discourse on the Sciences and Arts _and_ _has revised a previously published translation of _The Social Contract._. (shrink)

Discourse on the sciences and the arts -- Discourse on inequality -- On the social contract.

In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist and philosopher in Paris, to his wanderings as an exile, persecuted by governments and alienated from the world of modern civilization. In trying to explain who he was and how he came to be the object of others' admiration and abuse, Rousseau analyses with unique insight the relationship between an (...) elusive but essential inner self and the variety of social identities he was led to adopt. The book vividly illustrates the mixture of moods and motives that underlie the writing of autobiography: defiance and vulnerability, self-exploration and denial, passion, puzzlement, and detachment. Above all, Confessions is Rousseau's search, through every resource of language, to convey what he despairs of putting into words: the personal quality of one's own existence. (shrink)

The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is presented in two volumes, together forming the most comprehensive anthology of Rousseau's political writings in English. This second volume contains the earlier writings such as the First and Second Discourses, the publication of which signalled the power and challenge of Rousseau's thinking. Rousseau's influence was wide reaching and has continued to grow since his death: major landmarks in world history, such as the American and French Revolutions, were profoundly affected by Rousseau's writing, (...) as were cultural and intellectual movements such as Romanticism and Idealism. This volume, like its successor, contains a comprehensive introduction, chronology and guide to further reading and will enable students to obtain a full understanding of the writings of one of the world's greatest thinkers. (shrink)

" Voici un livre singulier dont l'intérêt déborde de beaucoup l'objectif déclaré. Ses maîtres d'œuvre avaient décidé de procéder à un recensement systématique de toutes les traductions des ouvrages de Gaston Bachelard. Ils ont demandé de surcroît que les résultats de cette enquête bibliographique soient accompagnés d'une analyse du contexte philosophique et culturel qui, dans chaque cas, a pu décider du choix de tel ou tel titre, qui a pu déterminer l'accueil réservé à ces textes et orienter les effets qu'ils (...) ont produits. Immense travail à la mesure du retentissement de la pensée bachelardienne qui a touché au fil de quelques décennies une quarantaine de pays, dont seize ont été ici retenus - du Japon aux pays arabes en passant par les Etats-Unis et la Russie. On aurait pu craindre de n'obtenir au bout du compte qu'un document informatif, précieux sans aucun doute pour les spécialistes mais dénué par lui-même de portée philosophique. Il n'en va pas du tout ainsi. Et le bénéfice du rigoureux parti pris méthodique adopté se révèle vraiment surprenant. [... ] Ce livre, non content de nous éclairer sur les deux versants - épistémologique et poétique - de l'œuvre de Bachelard, nous offre un tableau vivant de la philosophie mondiale et de son histoire au XXe siècle. Au prisme de Bachelard, c'est en effet tout le spectre de cette philosophie qui se dessine et s'anime. " Dominique Lecourt. (shrink)

Ces Entretiens sont à la fois l'autobiographie intellectuelle d'un des philosophes les plus au fait de quelques-uns des grands débats contemporains et un plaidoyer pour un style de pensée modeste, rigoureux et ironique. Jacques Bouveresse appartient à cette génération des jeunes assistants qui, dans les années 1960 montèrent à l'assaut d'une Sorbonne un peu poussiéreuse et à dominante spiritualiste. La véritable nouveauté pour lui ne fut cependant ni la linguistique, ni le marxisme, ni la psychanalyse, mais la logique " (...) moderne " qu'on tenait alors pour exotique et marginale. Adversaire-né de tous les conformismes, introducteur en France des philosophes logiciens Frege, Russell, Carnap contenté de plaider pour la philosophie analytique ; il a tracé d'emblée la voie d'une certaine résistance intellectuelle, qui s'alimente autant à l'ironie viennoise d'un Kraus ou d'un Musil, qu'à une relecture très personnelle de Nietzsche. (shrink)

A discourse on the arts and sciences -- A discourse on the origin of inequality -- A discourse on political economy -- The general society of the human race -- The social contract.

This essay starts from the theory of disputes and progresses towards a theory of ‘interpellation’, which it aims to outline. The starting point is given by Lyotard's differend, which provides a first contrast between dispute and quarrel. Dispute can be seen as the more irenic pole of a system where quarrel would be identified as clearly agonistic. The essay first revisits the differend in the light of Habermas's theory, which posits that discussions take place against the background of a lifeworld. (...) This enables ways of conceptualizing both dispute, as emerging from the possibilities offered by language games, and quarrel, which belongs to the world of incomprehension. This first model is subjected to the test of Lewis Carroll's ‘Alice in Wonderland’ books, where dissensus is transformed into consensus, where a quarrel may end up in a dispute which respects conventions. But the crucial point of the essay is to provide a philosophy of language which enables the conceptualization of quarrels. The essay revisits the conceptions put forward in The Violence of Language and A Marxist Philosophy of Language but then carries the analysis into new territory. Finding inspiration in Althusser's theory of interpellation and in Judith Butler's reading of Althusser, the essay shows that quarrels enact both interpellation and counter-interpellation, and views further quarrels as one of the characteristics of human language. (shrink)