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Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau with Related Documents

First Edition

Publication Date: October 13, 2010

Paperback ISBN: 9780312468422

Pages: 176

A provocative essay that challenged the superiority of civilized society and modern government, Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality made him an outcast among fellow Enlightenment thinkers but stands today as one of the most important political texts...

Paperback

Read and study in the print textbook.

Paperback

ISBN: 9780312468422
Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men

£40.99

Foreword

Preface

PART ONE. INTRODUCTION: The Life and Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseaus Beginnings: The Road to the Second Discourse
The Origins of Political Authority Before Rousseau
Rousseaus Bombshell: The Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality
     The State of Nature
     The Steps to Society
     The Invention of Property
     Anthropology, Psychology, and Evolutionary Biology
     Rousseau and Gender
     Reception of the Second Discourse
     “Citizen of Geneva”: The Dedication
Rousseaus Later Life and Legacy
     Rousseau and the French Revolution
     The Social Contract and Its Paradoxes

PART TWO: Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Citizen of Geneva
Dedication
Preface
Notice about the Notes
First Part
Second Part
Rousseaus Notes

PART THREE. RELATED DOCUMENTS
1. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Politics Drawn from Holy Scripture, 1709
2. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651
3. Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, 1673
4. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 1690
5. George-Louis Leclerc Buffon, Discourse on the Nature of Animals, 1753
6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Of the Social Contract, 1762
7. Maximilien Robespierre, Eulogies to Rousseau, 1790s
8. Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics, 1810

Appendixes
     A Jean-Jacques Rousseau Chronology (1712-1794)
     Questions for Consideration
     Selected Bibliography

Index

“This volume offers considerable insight into early modern European political philosophy concerning the social contract theory. The introduction is impressively lucid. It effectively describes some complex ideas in a manner that is accessible to undergraduates without oversimplifying matters.”
-- Timothy Schroer, University of West Georgia

“The introduction is clear and well written. It deftly sketches the historical context and lays out the main philosophical issues of early modern political writing. I give it high marks for accessibility.”
-- Patrick Coleman, University of California, Los Angeles

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Helena Rosenblatt

Helena Rosenblatt (PhD, Columbia) is a professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. A specialist in European intellectual history, she is the author of Liberal Values: Benjamin Constant and the Politics of Religion (2008) and Rousseau and Geneva: From the First Discourse to the Social Contract, 1749-1762 (1997), and she is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Constant (2009).