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This article reframes the approach to Rousseau in political philosophy and histories of political thought by emphasizing some neglected aesthetic dimensions of amour-propre and the general will. I argue that Rousseau's account of the origins of amour-propre in aesthetic judgment alerts us to his view that the potentially dangerous effects of amour-propre can be mitigated if its 'extension' to others is grounded in an aesthetic appreciation of beauty. This pushes back against the predominant 'revisionist' interpretation of amour-propre in terms of Hegelian 'recognition' or Rawlsian 'social bases of self-respect'. It also clears the ground for my recovery of Rousseau's neglected analogy between the general will and what he called the general taste. I argue that reconstructing the general taste and reconsidering the general will in its light yields a significant argument by analogy: like the general taste, the general will is democratically determined by majority vote, not constrained by transcendent standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As early as within the ancient period and the emergence of the Roman law and then also in the Middle Ages, the contract theory played an important role in establishing order. Contractualism has assumed great importance in the milieu of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It was primarily concerned with agreements that were intended to secure the covenants of people with God and took on the character of a normative contract as a source of law. In the field of state and law, the influence of contract theories asserted itself particularly on the threshold of the modern period in the context of the development of liberalism in its early forms. Contract theories emerge in this period in a dominant part of writers of the early liberalism, with the central motivation being to secure the protection of an individual against the arbitrary will of another individual or authority of any kind. The basic motivation of contract theories became the objective to establish a sovereign in the state. Such process of choice is accompanied by a legally unstable state of nature, which is characterized by the existence of the lex naturalis (natural law) and ius naturale (natural right). This article deals with the definition, analysis, and comparison of the concepts of natural law and natural right in the context of the three most relevant thinkers of the given period, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. The aim of this paper is to highlight overlaps and differences in the way of discussing these concepts, which at the time formed the basis of what we now call the statecraft. In addition, the text is also enriched by author's criticism and analyses of problematic or content-inconsistent passages in the philosophy of individual authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's world, there is a legal system. Laws should be for the growth of a community in all aspects, such as providing the safety and protection of the people, but there was also a period when there were no laws. In his work titled "The State of Nature," Jean-Jacques Rousseau provided an analysis of the nature of the people who lived during that period and were solely concerned with their self-centered objectives. The person is inspired to live by the realization of the essence of the natural law, which is that there is a natural law. Rousseau believes that laws should take precedence over the will of the people and that all laws should apply to every single person. Those who are responsible for enforcing and deciding the laws may not assert that they are their own. It is the purpose of this article to investigate the changes that these kinds of legislation have brought about in society, notably in the field of education. Additionally, the purpose of this study is to focus more on educational approaches by referring to how education, according to Rousseau's perspective, interprets such rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the relation between public opinion and public discussion (déliberation) in Rousseau’s work. Some contemporary theorists regard Rousseau as a thinker who rejects the necessity of public debate in political decision-making and deplore the lack of discussion in the process by which the general will is formed. To clarify Rousseau’s position regarding this problem the article explores two paths. First, it analyses the concepts of “general” and “particular” as they relate to interest and will, and the terms used by Rousseau to express the political process: délibération, opiner, voter. The second part reveals how Rousseau understands (public) opinion as an expression of our self-love and why he condemns the creation of particular societies within a political body. In conclusion, we show in what sense déliberation is for Rousseau a necessary condition for the democratic process.

Recent research has pointed to the modern nature of the state that Islamists posit in contrast to medieval Islamic notions of political authority. This paper argues that a conceptual framework derived from romantic aesthetics underpinned the Islamist thought of Sayyid Qutb, who was for many years a secular literary writer. The aesthetic framework made possible the notion of human freedom and progress as the enactment of the general or collective will, which is the source of the state. Classical formulations of the general will in Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel are closely related to contemporaneous aesthetic notions of freedom as creative expression of interiority. Qutb participated in this line of thinking. The vitalist metaphysics and expressivist aesthetic theory of his literary period led him to later formulate an account of the general will that is embodied in Islamic law, the sharīʿa, which he identified with the state. He presented the Islamic state on this basis as resolving the fundamental contradiction of western modernity that romantic aesthetics had identified in the context of establishing the redemptive value of art. This contradiction, the disunity of the spiritual and the material, was equated by Qutb with the separation of church and state. Islamic law as the state is thus justified on aesthetic grounds as the reconciliation of humanity and nature now divided by Western materialism. Qutb's thought in the context of its aesthetic genesis provides valuable insight into the nature of modern notions of individual and collective will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Academic Journal of Philosophy / Felsefi Düşün is the property of Pinhan Yayincilik and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Philosophy, Culture & Political Science is the property of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Larq Journal for Philosophy, Linguistics & Social Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article is divided into three parts. The first part consists of analyzing the concept of justice within the thought of David Hume in his works A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. The second part applies a similar process to the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract and Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men. The third part establishes that the notions of justice, both in the case of the Scottish philosopher and the Genevan philosopher, have different contexts and meanings but, in reality, share similarities regarding the foundation of property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On October 11, 2010, France became the first European country to ban the full-face Islamic veil – the burqa and niqab, in public places. After France becoming a “pioneer” in this area, by contrast to the United Stated and Russia, facial veil prohibition acts have been adopted in several other European countries and discussed in even more. These acts and political debates have generated a colossal number of research papers – mostly on legal issues by lawyer-scholars, critical analyses and, I’m sure, will produce many more. They have mainly focused on different aspects of the right to religious and cultural freedom, the right to gender equality. However, the novelty of Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor’s monograph “The Republic, Secularism and Security: France versus the Burqa and the Niqab” lies in a non-standard approach to the veil-ban issue – he investigates using different methodological instruments not only the legal core the ban, but also (and mostly) the factors motivating the French legislator, what it symbolizes. Since the niqab and burqa wearers are extremely rare in France, as in almost all European Countries, one may agree that there surely isn’t an actual social problem, needing to be regulated by the government. Such disproportional This difference between practical importance and French legislative effort have urged Professor Cohen-Almagor to dwell on the reasons of such a high interest by the public administration to the religious facial veil. The study was carried out using various scientific methods: general scientific (analysis, synthesis, modeling, abstraction, etc.), empirical (observation, statistics), specifically legal (comparative legal, axiological, sociological, hermeneutics), historical (diachronic, ideographic). Huge practical experience, thorough, systemic knowledge of the regulatory material and practical aspects of its implementation allow the Author to analyze the symbolic and instrumental role of the facial veil in France’s pursuit for national identity building.

This paper questions Waldow reading of Rousseau's 'Letter to M D'Alembert' [Letter]. It claims that Waldow fails to address the social and political argument that lies behind Rousseau's critique of the theatre and, as a result, her conclusions are misplaced. First, Rousseau does not seek to quench critique rather his aim is to show that the theatre distracts us from our real concerns in life and thus quells discontent and, indeed, the possibility of dissent. Second, Rousseau does not refer to the naturally intact morals of the Genevans but argues that the Genevans are closer to the state of nature and thus less corrupt. Finally, his account of the state of nature in the Letter is not at odds with his own views about the state of nature. Just as in his other writings, he uses the state of nature as a heuristic device to justify his claim that social relations give rise to vice and virtue. It is a necessary fiction that provides us with the principle of hope that things could be otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the relation between public opinion and public discussion (déliberation) in Rousseau’s work. Some contemporary theorists regard Rousseau as a thinker who rejects the necessity of public debate in political decision-making and deplore the lack of discussion in the process by which the general will is formed. To clarify Rousseau’s position regarding this problem the article explores two paths. First, it analyses the concepts of “general” and “particular” as they relate to interest and will, and the terms used by Rousseau to express the political process: délibération, opiner, voter. The second part reveals how Rousseau understands (public) opinion as an expression of our self-love and why he condemns the creation of particular societies within a political body. In conclusion, we show in what sense déliberation is for Rousseau a necessary condition for the democratic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question I want to ask is if emotions can and do have any role in forming and regulating democratic citizenship. We can ask if emotions and feelings might have any positive role in politics in general. This is a good and reasonable question, but I want to narrow it down and approach it from the point of view of citizenship in a democratic society. This means I must give an account of citizenship in a democratic context and of feelings and emotions and how they might possibly contribute to citizenship in democracy, establish and strengthen the glue that is necessary to prevent faction and strife getting out of hand.

Copyright of Academic Journal of Philosophy / Felsefi Düşün is the property of Pinhan Yayincilik and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article argues that a variety of versions of the "general will" were central to late Old Regime political culture and that these included not only Jean-Jacques Rousseau's most famous anticorporatist variant but also corporate ones originating with Denis Diderot and with the Parlements (via the Jansenists). These rival variants of general will discourse all contributed to an emerging protodemocratic political culture in the last decades of the Old Regime, and they furthermore framed the debate over the forms and procedures of the Estates-General in 1789. Because French political culture in 1789 depended on a plural, contested general will discourse, François Furet's and Keith Michael Baker's arguments locating the Terror's origins in a hegemonic Rousseauist general will discourse in 1789 are incorrect. The article also thereby indicates that Timothy Tackett's argument denying evidence for Rousseau's direct influence on the deputies in 1789 cannot suffice to disprove the influence of a "discourse of will" in the National Constituent Assembly. Cet article soutient que plusieurs variantes de la « volonté générale » jouaient un rôle central dans la culture politique française à la fin de l'Ancien Régime, y compris non seulement la plus célèbre variante anticorporatiste de Rousseau mais aussi des variantes corporatives issues de Diderot et des Parlements (grâce aux Jansénistes). Ces variantes rivales dans le discours de la volonté générale contribuaient toutes à une culture politique proto-démocratique émergente dans les dernières décennies de l'Ancien Régime, et en outre elles ont délimité le débat sur les formes et procédures des Etats Généraux en 1789. Puisque la culture politique française en 1789 dépendait d'un discours pluriel et contesté de la volonté générale, les arguments de Furet et de Baker qui situent les origines de la Terreur dans un discours hégémonique rousseauiste de la volonté générale sont incorrects. Cet article indique aussi que l'argument de Tackett qui nie l'évidence d'une influence directe de Rousseau sur les députés en 1789 ne peut pas suffire pour réfuter l'influence d'un « discours de volonté » dans la Constituante. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]