Jean-Jacques Rousseau

'Émile, Or Treatise on Education' is a treatise on the nature of education and on the nature of man written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered it to be, the "best and most important of all my writings". During the French Revolution, Émile served as the inspiration for what became a new national system of education. This version contains dozens of linked footnotes by Jules Steeg.

"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains" These are the famous opening words of a treatise that has not ceased to stir vigorous debate since its first publication in 1762. Rejecting the view that anyone has a natural right to wield authority over others, Rousseau argues instead for a pact, or 'social contract', that should exist between all the citizens of a state and that should be the source of sovereign power. From this fundamental...

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's thesis that children are naturally good at birth violated the traditional Christian doctrine of origin sin. His argument that education should arise from children's natural instincts and impulses rather than trying to civilize and socialize them challenged traditional schooling. Rousseau's defenders see him as a pioneering thinker whose revolutionary...

A fascinating examination of the relationship between civilization and inequality from one of history's greatest minds   The first man to erect a fence around a piece of land and declare it his own founded civil society-and doomed mankind to millennia of war and famine. The dawn of modern civilization, argues Jean-Jacques Rousseau in this essential treatise on human nature, was also the beginning of inequality.   One of the great thinkers of the...

"The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau" is a one-of-a-kind autobiography. Up until its publication in 1782, only two autobiographies had ever been written, and both were written by devout religious saints. Highly scandalous yet witty in nature, calling Rousseau's work an "autobiography" is a loose categorization of the text, as many of the stories and tales have been proven false, yet Rousseau told the truth about the spirit of his life through...

Une édition de référence des Confessions de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, spécialement conçue pour la lecture sur les supports numériques. « Je suis né à Genève en 1712, d'Isaac Rousseau, citoyen, et de Suzanne Bernard, citoyenne. Un bien fort médiocre à partager entre quinze enfants ayant réduit presque à rien la portion de mon père, il n'avait pour subsister que son métier d'horloger, dans lequel il était à la vérité fort habile....

The aim of the Discourse is to examine the foundations of inequality among men, and to determine whether this inequality is authorised by natural law. Rousseau attempts to demonstrate that modern moral inequality, which is created by an agreement between men, is unnatural and unrelated to the true nature of man.

This "fresh new rendition of Rousseau's major political writings is a boon for scholars and students alike"-with a critical introduction by the translator (Richard Boyd, Georgetown University). Individualist and communitarian. Anarchist and totalitarian. Progressive and reactionary. Since the eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been called all of these things. Few philosophers have been the subject of such intense debate, yet almost everyone...

Originally published in 1762, "The Social Contract" is Jean-Jacques Rousseau's treatise on how to best organize politics in the face of commercial society. Rousseau writes, "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains." This statement exemplifies the main dilemma of government, that despite mankind having an inherent natural right to freedom, modern, especially autocratic, governments had gone too far in restricting it. The question which Rousseau...