The writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau continue to attract a wide range of readers throughout the world. Persistent questions concerning nationalism, political legitimacy, and the social costs of technological progress sustain an ongoing interest in Rousseau's major political writings (The Social Contract, Considerations on the Government of Poland, the first and second discourses). Controversies over child-rearing, the nature of language, and the role of the media in public life keep alive his educational and cultural writings (Emile, Essay on the Origin of Languages, Letter to d'Alembert on the Theater). Speculations about psychology and the arts of autobiography draw readers to Rousseau's personal writings (The Confessions, Reveries of a Solitary Walker, Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques). And new attitudes regarding love, marriage, and eroticism provoke reconsideration of his romantic novel (La nouvelle Héloïse). As the editors of a 1978 issue of Daedalus commemorating the bicentennial of Rousseau's death observed, Rousseau anticipated many of the moral, political, social, and aesthetic concerns that continue to preoccupy us today.
Three intellectual currents have contributed significantly to a growing body of scholarship on Rousseau. Feminist studies have offered fresh interpretations of his notoriously controversial writings about the nature, education, and status of women (see esp. Emile, book 5). Some feminist theorists (e.g., Okin, 1979) argue that Rousseau's advocacy of sexually differentiated social and political roles contradicts his egalitarian principles and undermines the logic and validity of his political theory. Others (e.g., Weiss, 1994) maintain that sexual differentiation constitutes a necessary social construct undergirding the unity of his entire system. At issue in many of these debates are fundamental questions about the usefulness for modern feminism of any theory that posits a close connection between a woman's essential "nature" and her moral role in society.
Deconstruction has also affected the content and direction of Rousseau criticism, especially among scholars in language and literature departments. The French philosophers and literary critics who originated this movement in the 1960s and 1970s gave prime place to Rousseau in the development of their ideas (see, e.g., Derrida, 1976). In seeking to expose the indeterminacy of the meaning of Rousseau's texts by examining details that are commonly overlooked (e.g., footnotes, metaphors, his choice of particular terms), deconstructionist critiques illuminate the multilayered quality of his prose and show that even an author committed to the truth may produce writings fraught with artifice.
A third important source of Rousseau criticism has been the legacy of Leo Strauss (1899–1973)—a political philosopher who is as well known for the habits of close textual analysis he passed on to his students as for the ideas put forth in his own writings (see, e.g., Strauss, 1953). Straussian interpretations take seriously Rousseau's claims that his political thought forms a single coherent system; they also emphasize his debt to classical sources. Most important, perhaps, the Straussian legacy includes a substantial number of English translations of Rousseau's work (e.g., by Allan Bloom, Victor Gourevitch, Christopher Kelly, Judith R. Bush, and Roger D. Masters)—thus making him more accessible to the general reader in North America.
Rousseau specialists have benefited from the publication of Rousseau's Oeuvres complètes and Correspondance complète, from the appearance of scholarly journals and associations devoted to Rousseau studies (Annales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Études Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the Proceedings of the North American Association for the Study of Rousseau), and from the publication of papers delivered at various conferences held in 1978 to commemorate his death and in 1989 to mark his relationship to the French Revolution.
Oeuvres complètes. 5 vols, edited by B. Gagnebin and M. Raymond. Paris: Gallimard, 1959–.
Correspondance complète de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 51 vols, edited by R. A. Leigh. Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1965–1991.
Emile: or, On Education. Translated by A. Bloom. New York: Basic, 1979.
The Collected Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, edited by R. D. Masters and C. Kelly; translated by J. R. Bush, C. Kelly, and R. D. Masters. Hanover, NH, 1990–.
Works on Rousseau
Affeldt, Steven G. "The Force of Freedom: Rousseau on Forcing to Be Free." Political Theory 27 (3) (1999): 299–333.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.
Boyd, Richard. "Pity's Pathologies Portrayed: Rousseau and the Limits of Democratic Compassion." Political Theory 32 (4) (2004): 519–546.
Charvet, John. The Social Problem in the Philosophy of Rousseau. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
Cooper, Laurence D. Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
Cranston, Maurice William and Richard S. Peters, eds. Hobbes and Rousseau: A Collection of Critical Essays. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1972.
Cranston, Maurice William. Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712–1754. New York: Norton, 1982.
Cranston, Maurice William. The Noble Savage: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1754–1762. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Cranston, Maurice William. The Solitary Self: Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Exile and Adversity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Dascal, Marcelo. "'Aporia' and 'Theoria': Rousseau on Language and Thought." Revue Internationale et Philosophie 32 (1978): 214–237.
Dent, N. J. H "Jean-Jacques Rousseau." In The Blackwell Guide to the Modern Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche, edited by Steven Emmanuel. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 2001.
Dent, N. J. H. Rousseau: An Introduction to His Psychological, Social and Political Theory. New York: Blackwell, 1988.
Dent, N. J. H. A Rousseau Dictionary. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Reference, 1992.
Ferrara, Alessandro. Modernity and Authenticity: A Study in the Social and Ethical Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Albany: State University of New York, 1993.
Fralin, Richard. Rousseau and Representation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.
Grimsley, Ronald. The Philosophy of Rousseau. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Hall, John C. Rousseau, An Introduction to his Political Philosophy. London: Macmillan, 1973.
Havens, George Remington. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Boston: Twayne, 1978.
Hedman, Carl G. "Rousseau on Self-Interest, Compassion, and Moral Progress." Revue de l'universite d'Ottawa 49 (1979): 430–447.
Hiley, David R. "The Individual and the General Will: Rousseau Reconsidered." History of Philosophy Quarterly 7 (2) (1990): 159–178.
Hoffman, Piotr. Freedom, Equality, Power: The Ontological Consequences of the Political Philosophies of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. New York: Lang, 1999.
Horowitz, Asher. Rousseau, Nature, and History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.
Howard, Dick. "Rousseau and the Origin of Revolution." Philosophy and Social Criticism 6 (1979): 349–370.
Johnston, Steven. Encountering Tragedy: Rousseau and the Project of Democratic Order. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Kain, Philip J. "Rousseau, the General Will, and Individual Liberty." History of Philosophy Quarterly (1990): 315–334.
Kavanagh, Thomas M. Writing the Truth: Authority and Desire in Rousseau. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Kukla, Rebecca. "The Coupling of Human Souls: Rousseau and the Problem of Gender Relations." In Political Dialogue: Theories and Practices, edited by Stephen L. Esquith. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996.
Lange, Lynda. Feminist Interpretations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.
Lauth, Reinhard. "Le systeme des pensees de Rousseau selon a Philonenko." Archives de Philosophie 50 (1987): 23–53.
Leigh, R. A., ed. Rousseau after Two Hundred Years: Proceedings of the Cambridge Bicentennial Colloquium. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Levine, Andrew. The General Will, Rousseau, Marx, Communism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Levine, Andrew. "Beyond Justice: Rousseau against Rawls." Journal of Chinese Philosophy 4 (1977): 123–142.
Masters, Roger D. The Political Philosophy of Rousseau. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968.
Miller, Jim. Rousseau: Dreamer of Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984.
Morgenstern, Mira. Rousseau and the Politics of Ambiguity: Self, Culture, and Society. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
Morris, Christopher W. The Social Contract Theorists: Critical Essays on Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.
O'Hagan, Timothy, ed. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Sources of the Self. Brookfield, MA: Avebury, 1997.
Orwin, Clifford and Nathan Tarcov, eds. The Legacy of Rousseau. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Perkins, Merle L. Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the Individual and Society. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1974.
Qvortrup, Mads. The Political Philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Impossibility of Reason. New York: Manchester University Press, 2003.
Rapaczynski, Andrzej. Nature and Politics: Liberalism in the Philosophies of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Reisert, Joseph R. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Friend of Virtue. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.
Riley, Patrick, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Rosenblatt, Helena. Rousseau and Geneva: From the "First Discourse" to the "Social Contract," 1749–1762. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Ryan, Bruce A. "Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Behavior Control: The Technology of a Romantic Behaviorist." Behaviorism 4 (1976): 245–256.
Scholz, Sally J. On Rousseau. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001.
Schwartz, Joel. The Sexual Politics of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Shaver, Robert. "Rousseau and Recognition." Social Theory and Practice 15 (1989): 261–283.
Simon Ingram, Julia. "Rousseau and the Problem of Community: Nationalism, Civic Virtue, Totalitarianism." History of European Ideas 16 (1–3) (1993): 23–29.
Starobinski, Jean. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Transparency and Obstruction. Translated by Authur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Steinberg, Jules. Locke, Rousseau, and the Idea of Consent: An Inquiry into the Liberal-Democratic Theory of Political Obligation. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.
Still, Judith. Justice and Difference in the Works of Rousseau. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Strong, Tracy B. Jean Jacques Rousseau: The Politics of the Ordinary. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.
Trouille, Mary Seidman. Sexual Politics in the Enlightenment: Women Writers Read Rousseau. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
Viroli, Maurizio. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the 'Well-Ordered Society.' Translated by Derek Hanson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Vulliamy, Colwyn E. Rousseau. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1972.
Weirich, Paul. "Rousseau on Proportional Majority Rule." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (1986): 111–126.
Weiss, Penny A. Gendered Community: Rousseau, Sex, and Politics. New York: New York University Press, 1993.
Wokler, Robert. Rousseau. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Wokler, Robert. Rousseau: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
This is the complete article, containing 1,584 words
(approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page).
