Yeah, fuck this guy.

He's way too smart. It's really annoying sometimes. You know, when you think you have the upper hand in a conversation or a situation, and then he comes along with his brilliant mind and turns everything upside down.

It makes you feel kind of inferior. But at the same time, you can't help but admire his intelligence.

He always seems to have the right answers, the best solutions.

It's like he's a step ahead of everyone else.

Maybe I should try to learn from him instead of being so resentful.

Who knows, maybe one day I'll be just as smart as he is.

But for now, I'm still going to be a little bit salty about it.

The paragon of insight, style, and wit.

He is truly a remarkable individual, someone who seems to possess an innate ability to see through the surface and understand the deeper essence of things. His style is not only unique but also captivating, drawing people in with his charm and charisma. And his wit! Oh, his wit is simply unrivaled. He can turn a phrase with such ease and humor that it leaves you laughing and yet also pondering the truth behind his words.

I find myself completely under his spell. Every time I encounter him or his work, I am left in awe. His ideas are like a breath of fresh air, inspiring me to think differently and see the world from a new perspective.

And this superb edition only serves to enhance my admiration for him. It showcases his talents in all their glory, presenting his insights, style, and wit in a way that is both accessible and engaging. It is a must-have for anyone who appreciates true excellence.

There is a wealth of fascinating content within this collection. However, for the purposes of this review, I will predominantly focus on the renowned two discourses (On the Arts and Inequality).

Like numerous famous thinkers, Rousseau often has a reputation that precedes him and significantly colors the readings of his work. In Rousseau's case, he is frequently portrayed as an extremely naive thinker, one who is enamored with 'the primitive'. After perusing these works, I believe that this depiction (while there may be a modicum of truth in certain aspects) is a gross misrepresentation that overlooks the 'radical bourgeois' subtext present in the Discourses. I am no expert on Rousseau, and much of my interpretation stems from having read these texts firsthand and having a basic understanding of their historical context, which was greatly aided by the excellent introductory essay by Gourvitvh.

In the case of the Discourse on the Arts, I have witnessed many assert that this is where Rousseau's primitivism is most prominent. Nevertheless, I would vehemently argue that it is rather indicative of Rousseau's attacks on political absolutism as it existed in France and the relationship between its aesthetic culture and the then-extant organization of the state. For instance, Rousseau, in his flowery prose, exclaims, "The mind has its needs, just as the body does. The latter are the foundations of society; from the former emerge the pleasures of society. While government and laws take care of the security and the well-being of men in groups, the sciences, letters, and the arts, less despotic and perhaps more powerful, spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains which weigh men down, snuffing out in them the feeling of that original liberty for which they appear to have been born, and make them love their slavery by turning them into what are called civilized people." (6)

The crucial relationship between political power and knowledge production is not lost on the author, and he drives the point home, further arguing that in this type of society, there is a tendency for people conditioned to follow a single individual, such as the monarch, to also abdicate their own initiative and intellectual faculties to 'thought leaders'. This, he contends, corrupts the fabric of civil society and weakens any emancipatory impulse among the population that has relinquished its own capacity to think. Needless to say, this is a highly prescient observation given the pervasive nature of advertising, influencer-celebrities, and the like in our own culture.

Rousseau is less of a primitivist and more like a modern Lycurgus, the legendary king of Sparta, who emphasized the importance of ascetic virtues for the sake of the collective good of a prospective regime. In the spirit of many early Protestant industrialists who sacrificed worldly pleasures to amass wealth, Rousseau claims that limiting the influence of the arts and sciences on the general population will enable them to connect more deeply with their society and 'fatherland'. It is argued that since science and art at that time were individualistic pursuits accessible only to men of great material and intellectual means, furthering the knowledge of mankind should be the responsibility of the Newtons of the world. I disagree with Rousseau in light of our modern circumstances where knowledge production is a socialized process (the Academic-Industrial Complex), but his观点 is wrong in a thought-provoking manner. It is concluded that the development of the arts and sciences is not inherently good; it depends on the surrounding social context (in our modern age, science and art are primarily pursued for profit rather than for 'higher ideals').

Similarly, in the Discourse of Inequality. In the historical context of the piece, it is quite evident that when Rousseau refers to inequality by convention, he is mainly using it to assail the practices of the aristocracy in France that kept the peasants impoverished and miserable. Rousseau argues that as human social practices change over time, there is an interruption in the 'normal process' of the reproduction of nature as a power above humans that maintains a degree of proximity and reciprocity with it (for example, humans do not need to labor, much less labor together, to extract subsistence from nature, and instead take what they need from nature and each other, and association is completely voluntary). Rousseau claims that changes in the climate (among other factors) compel people to come together, and there arises a need for new practices that abstract the immediate relationships that characterized pre-social humanity and nature, and human interaction is used as a form of mediation for the once 'free' human relationships. This abstraction could be used to herd people together (meaning they would 'fall' from the previously unencumbered state they existed in within nature). However, by the same token, the abstractions of language allow humans to conceive of new ideas such as "freedom".

There are many aspects in these texts with which I do not concur, but I believe they offer us a highly interesting perspective from which to view contemporary human problems. Overall, I think this book is good, the translations are quite good, and there is a great deal to ponder over.

Though this book is a compilation of diverse early political writings by Rousseau, I aim to mainly concentrate on The Discourses as they constitute the vast majority of the volume.

In 1750 and 1754, Jean-Jacques Rousseau of Geneva elected to participate in the annual essay contest hosted by the Academy of Dijon. In both of these competitions, the discourses he submitted gained significant popularity and sparked controversy, with the ideas influencing successive generations of thinkers. He triumphed in his first attempt in 1750, answering the question: "Has the restoration of the sciences and arts contributed to the purification of morals?" However, he lost in his 1754 essay that responded to the inquiry: "What is the origin of inequality among people, and is it authorized by natural law?" Both of these discourses have had a profound impact on the way we understand education and politics, respectively. I will endeavor to briefly present my views on both, as well as comment on the general format of the book and its editorial layout/decisions.

I read The Discourses out of sequence due to school requirements, but I am now glad I did as it makes more sense chronologically. The Second Discourse [On the Origins of Inequality] delves into how civil societies are unequal and how modern political societies merely perpetuate inequality. Rousseau's entire political philosophy runs counter to the status quo of two of his most renowned predecessors on the subject: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke (whose political philosophy I personally prefer). Rousseau contends against the accepted wisdom advocated by Hobbes and Locke that civil, political society brought order and stability from the chaos and uncertainty of nature. Rousseau famously asserts that natural man was man at his best, and the moment one man claimed property or possession, this marked the beginning of inequality and sorrow for the human race. Savage man was perfection, and everything since has been imperfection. This is my basic overview of the discourse, but it delves deeply into the topic and is well worth reading.

Although I disagree with the overall thesis, if that were the only discourse I had read in this book, I would rate the book 4/5 stars. However, I also read the First Discourse, which actually won the Academy's essay contest. If you understand what he believes regarding man in his natural state versus man in civil society, you will, of course, know what he does not believe at all: that the enlightenment has enhanced morality. In fact, Rousseau believes the opposite, that even in the Classical era, scholarship ruined societies. He provides all the examples one could think of, from Egypt to Persia to China to Greece to Rome to England. It is rich in examples but lighter on actual ideas/statements. In short, for the most part, people who take up or perpetuate the general teaching of the arts and sciences are ruining society and undermining patriotism. "Learned men" should exist, but they should reserve their talents for collaboration with political leaders only, and both groups can, in concert, assist society. Had this been the only discourse I had read, the book would have received two, perhaps three stars.

The two Discourses discuss the same thing but from two different perspectives. In both, one group stands out as Rousseau's favorite and as the closest to a perfect state that has existed in recorded history: Sparta. Both Discourses are accompanied by replies (usually criticisms) to Rousseau, and Rousseau responds in turn. You can find supplementary notes by Rousseau in the form of footnotes and endnotes, but they can be inaccurate or misleading. Rousseau is notorious for not only contradicting himself across different works but also within a single work. Without the editorial notes at the back of the book, I would not have known that Rousseau casually misattributes quotations and misremembers basic facts. The people at Cambridge deserve a medal for having to double-check everything he wrote.