The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau's Social Contract

David Lay Williams · Matthew W. Maguire

Feb 2024 · Cambridge University Press

Ebook

383

Pages

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About this ebook

What is freedom? What is equality? And what is sovereignty? A foundational text of modern political philosophy, Rousseau's Social Contract has generated much debate and exerted extraordinary influence not only on political thought, but also modern political history, by way of the French Revolution and other political events, ideals, and practices. The Social Contract is regularly studied in undergraduate courses of philosophy, political thought, and modern intellectual history, as well as being the subject of graduate seminars in numerous disciplines. The book inspires an ongoing flow of scholarly articles and monographs. Few texts have offered more influential and important answers to research questions than Rousseau's Social Contract, and in this new Cambridge Companion, a multidisciplinary team of contributors provides new ways to navigate this masterpiece of political philosophy- and its animating questions.

About the author

David Lay Williams is a Professor of Political Science at DePaul University. He is the author of Rousseau's Platonic Enlightenment (2007) and Rousseau's 'Social Contract': An Introduction (CUP, 2014), as well as the co-editor of The General Will: The Evolution of a Concept (CUP, 2015). He is presently completing a book on economic inequality in the history of political thought.

Matthew W. Maguire is a Professor of History and Catholic Studies at DePaul University. He is the author of The Conversion of Imagination: From Pascal through Rousseau to Tocqueville (2006) and Carnal Spirit: The Revolutions of Charles Péguy (2019), in addition to essays about diverse topics in European intellectual history. His is now writing a book about autonomy and freedom.

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