Letter to Beaumont, Letters Written from the Mountain, and Related Writings (Collected Writings of Rousseau)

Letter to Beaumont, Letters Written from the Mountain, and Related Writings (Collected Writings of Rousseau)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Language: English

Pages: 366

ISBN: 1611682878

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Published between 1762 and 1765, these writings are the last works Rousseau wrote for publication during his lifetime. Responding in each to the censorship and burning of Emile and Social Contract, Rousseau airs his views on censorship, religion, and the relation between theory and practice in politics.

The Letter to Beaumont is a response to a Pastoral Letter by Christophe de Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris (also included in this volume), which attacks the religious teaching in Emile. Rousseau’s response concerns the general theme of the relation between reason and revelation and contains his most explicit and boldest discussions of the Christian doctrines of creation, miracles, and original sin.

In Letters Written from the Mountain, a response to the political crisis in Rousseau’s homeland of Geneva caused by a dispute over the burning of his works, Rousseau extends his discussion of Christianity and shows how the political principles of the Social Contract can be applied to a concrete constitutional crisis. One of his most important statements on the relation between political philosophy and political practice, it is accompanied by a fragmentary “History of the Government of Geneva.”

Finally, “Vision of Peter of the Mountain, Called the Seer” is a humorous response to a resident of Motiers who had been inciting attacks on Rousseau during his exile there. Taking the form of a scriptural account of a vision, it is one of the rare examples of satire from Rousseau’s pen and the only work he published anonymously after his decision in the early 1750s to put his name on all his published works. Within its satirical form, the “Vision” contains Rousseau’s last public reflections on religious issues.

Neither the Letter to Beaumont nor the Letters Written from the Mountain has been translated into English since defective translations that appeared shortly after their appearance in French. These are the first translations of both the “History” and the “Vision.”

Critical Theory and Libertarian Socialism: Realizing the Political Potential of Critical Social Theory (Critical Theory and Contemporary Society)

The Dilemma of the Commoners: Understanding the Use of Common Pool Resources in Long-Term Perspective (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

Justification and Critique: Towards a Critical Theory of Politics

Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea (Berkeley Tanner Lectures)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Judith R. Bush and Christopher Kelly Fragments of the Letter to Christophe de Beaumont 84 Translated by Christopher Kelly History of the Government of Geneva 102 Translated by Christopher Kelly Letters Written from the Mountain 131 Translated by Judith R. Bush and Christopher Kelly FIRST PART First Letter 134 State of the question in relation to the Author. Whether it is within the competence of the civil Tribunals. Unjust manner of resolving it. Second Letter 153 On the Religion of.

Several of the innumerable attacks made on this work.7 This period of controversy took up two years. Throughout the series of exchanges, Wrst for comic eVect and then more seriously, Rousseau remarked on his distaste for such polemics.8 At its conclusion he resolved to engage in such controversies no longer. Subsequently, he did write replies to several criticisms of the Second Discourse, but he did not Introduction xv publish these replies. In sum, he sustained his policy of public silence.

Place of the title of Counts of Geneva, which they took later on, at Wrst they had only that of Counts in the territory of the Genevese: Comes in pago Gehennensi; this part of the Diocese, which they possessed in Wef within the jurisdiction of the Bishop, became a special province under the name of Genevese, which it still bears today even though it is independent of the Republic. Even though the lords of this Province sometimes aVected to qualify themselves as Counts of Geneva, they were never.

Geneva, into which he had entered with a formidable display of force, resolved not to leave it except as acknowledged sovereign. That was the decisive moment. Having left Geneva, the Duke never re-entered it again. Having been set free in this way, at last feeling the utility of co-bourgeoisie with Fribourg, the city took advantage of it until the reformation and always found in the Fribourgeois sure friends and faithful co-bourgeois who served it with more aVection, zeal, and disinterestedness.

Duke of Savoy to be informed of it. The second and more considerable change was the institution of the political orders or intermediate bodies between the general council and the syndics. I put these establishments of councils after that of courts of justice. For although the sixty and the two hundred were named previously, 128 History of the Government of Geneva they did not have their Wxed and precise form until two years after the institution of this Tribunal. I have said that under the.

Download sample

Download