Jean-Jacques Rousseau

_Explore the natural world through Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s letters on botany—a beautifully written reflection on plants, nature, and philosophy by one of the Enlightenment’s greatest thinkers._ Whether on his philosophical walks or his bucolic wanderings: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and composer whose works profoundly influenced the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, always portrayed a deep passion for plant collecting. Between 1771 and 1774, he composed eight letters offering lessons in botany, addressed to Madame Delessert and destined to teach her young daughter Madelon. These letters constitute the thinker’s final work, alongside _Reveries of a Solitary Walker_, and reverberated throughout Europe in the early nineteenth century. Rousseau’s project was much more than a simple lesson in pedagogy; it is, rather, a genuine invitation to observe plants. Under his pen, the descriptions are elevated to the rank of art, and contemplation achieves the status of science. Liliaceous, cruciform, papilionaceous, and umbellate plants combine to compose a poetic herbarium.

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.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) was a White Genevan philosopher who spent significant portions of his career in France. His political philosophy had a large impact on later political thought and the French Revolution. This chapter is a selection from Rousseau’s 1762 work The Social Contract, in which he puts forward a political philosophy building on Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and others. He theorizes about liberty, equality, legitimate political power, and slavery. Based on somewhat different arguments than his predecessors, he categorically denies that slavery in the sense of an absolute subjection is ever legitimate. Like Locke, he rejects voluntary slavery, hereditary slavery, natural slavery, and political despotism; like Montesquieu and a few others, he also rejects war slavery. His arguments appear to be motivated by the political situation in Europe, without any evident concern about transatlantic slavery.

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 (Discourse on the Sciences and Arts) _and_ The Second Discourse (Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality)_—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._.