Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (Second Discourse), Polemics, and Political Economy

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Judith R. Bush (Translator), Roger D. Masters (Translator), Christopher Kelly (Translator), Terence Marshall (Translator)

Overview

Includes the Second Discourse (complete with the author’s extensive notes), contemporary critiques by Voltaire, Diderot, Bonnet, and LeRoy, Rousseau’s replies (some never before translated), and Political Economy, which first outlined principles that were to become famous in the Social Contract. This is the first time that the works of 1755 and 1756 have been combined with careful commentary to show the coherence of Rousseau’s “political system.” The Second Discourse examines man in the true “state of nature,” prior to the formation of the first human societies, tracing the “hypothetical history” of political society and social inequality as they developed out of natural equality and independence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780874516036
Publisher:	Dartmouth College Press
Publication date:	01/01/1993
Series:	Collected Writings of Rousseau Series , #3
Edition description:	Trans. from the French
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) was a leading Genevan philosopher and political theorist and one of the key figures of the Enlightenment.


Christopher Kelly is a professor of political science at Boston College. He is the author of Rousseau’s Exemplary Life and coeditor of The Collected Writings of Rousseau.

What People are Saying About This

Myron Magnet

"Extravagant, maybe even dangerous, Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality nevertheless remains among the most profound, and certainly the most thrilling, of political treatises. Roger Masters's translation is superb."
— Myron Magnet, American Spectator