Social Contract: Essays by Locke, Hume, and Rousseau

by Ernest Barker (Editor/Introduction), John Locke, David Hume

Contents: Introduction, Sir Ernest Barker; An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent and End of Civil Government, John Locke; Of the Original Contract, David Hume; The Social Contract, J.J. Rousseau.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Classics, Science

307 pages, Hardcover

First published December 28, 1947

About the author

Sir Ernest Barker FBA (1874 - 1960) was an English political scientist who served as Principal of King's College London from 1920 to 1927.

Barker was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford. He was a don at Oxford and spent a brief time at the London School of Economics. He was Principal of King's College London from 1920 to 1927, and subsequently became Professor of Political Science in the University of Cambridge in 1928, being the first holder of the chair endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation. In June 1936 he was elected to serve on the Liberal Party Council. He was knighted in 1944. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958. There is a memorial stone to him in St Botolph's Church, Cambridge.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came into Grinnell College with a lot of advanced placement credit in English and History. Consequently, expecting to spend four years there, I spent the first two years only occasionally thinking about requirements, mostly taking what I was interested in. Since the war in Southeast Asia was on everyone's mind and revolution seemed to be in the air, I mostly took courses that seemed interesting or at least politically relevant. This lead to several couses in the social sciences, seminars about political theory, utopian thought, the welfare system and the like. Two of them were taught by Alan Jones of the political science department and in one of those we were assigned this book, all of which made a lot of sense except Rousseau's concept of the general will. That seemed rather nebulous, a cloud which could mask totalitarian populisms such as were being practiced in the USSR and, earlier, by the German Reich.

Jones, who recently died, deserves a note as he was very popular: He was, among other things, the most prodigious chain smoker I've ever known excepting perhaps one of my brothers. He'd get excited--he was often excited--and light up, not remembering the cigarette he'd lit during his previous sentence, smoldering in one of the ashtrays near him in the front of the Alumni Recitation Hall classroom. On occasion he's have up to three going at a time, sometimes noticing with a start, sometimes not--perhaps noticing, perhaps not, our suppressed sniggers.

[Manar Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب الفه الفيلسوف جان جاك رسو عام 1762 اى من اكثر من 250 عام وبالرغم من ذلك تعد نظرية العقد الاجتماعي إحدى أهم النظريات في علم الفلسفة السياسية وتربط نظرية العقد الاجتماعي بين الدولة والسلطة التشريعية من جهة وبين الأفراد الذين يعيشون في تلك الدولة من جهة أخرى والتى تنص على أن الأفراد بحكم عيشهم في دولة ما قد وافقوا بشكل صريح أو ضمني على التنازل عن بعض حرياتهم وتقديمها لصالح السلطة الحاكمة في تلك الدولة، مقابل أن يحصل هؤلاء الأفراد على بعض الحقوق داخل تلك الدولة حيث ان العقد الاجتماعي برأي روسو هو اداة ارادية تنازل به الافراد عن حريتهم الطبيعية واذابوا ارادتهم الفردية في ارادة عامة مشتركة ,وهذه الارادة العامة هي السلطة صاحبة السيادة ، والسيادة التي تتكون من هذا التعاقد يكون لكل فرد نصيب فيها مساوي لنصيب الاخر وهذا الجزء الذي يخصه من السيادة لا يمكن انتزاعه منه وتتولى السلطة صاحبه السيادة حماية هذه الحقوق , والسيادة لا تتجزأ ولا توكل ولا تنتقل ولا يتصرف بها و تقبل التفويض او الانابة لان السيادة ليست جزءا من العقد بل هي وكيلة تابعة للارادة العامة وانها لا تستطيع ابد االتنازل عن ذاتها ، وان السلطة يمكن ان تنقل اما الارادة فلا

[Marcel · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's time more people started re-reading books on why we have a government, it's purpose, rights and limits. I side with Locke over either Hume or Rousseau...especially over Hume. Bit of a tough read but lots of thought-provoking snippets.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

These particular writings of these particular minds laid the foundations of contemporary secular society, birthed from a logical and reasonable dissatisfaction with the religious world.

[Simohammed Souiden · Rating 1 out of 5]

ترجمة سيئة للغاية