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160. - Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778)

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Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
David Lay Williams
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

The celebrated eighteenth-century Genevan philosopher, composer, novelist, and pedagogue Jean-Jacques Rousseau had an undeniably complex relationship with Spinoza. On the one hand, he adopted the mainline view of Spinoza found among intellectuals of his milieu, dismissing his “dangerous reveries.” On the other hand, Rousseau flirted with writing a text that he understood to be in the Spinozist mode, emphasizing a materialist/naturalistic account of human behavior.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 470 - 472
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Eckstein, W. (1944). Rousseau and Spinoza: Their political theories and their conception of ethical freedom. Journal of the History of Ideas, 5(3), 259–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Israel, J. (2001). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, J. J. (1995). Confessions. In The Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. v, ed. Kelly, C., Masters, R. D., and Stillman, P. G.. University Press of New England.Google Scholar
Rousseau, J. J. (1997a). Discourse on Political Economy. In Rousseau, , The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. Gourevitch, V.. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rousseau, J. J. (1997b). The Social Contract. In Rousseau, , The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. Gourevitch, V.. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, D. L. (2010). Spinoza and the general will. Journal of Politics, 72(2), 341–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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