Rousseau in 90 Minutes

Philosophers in 90 Minutes

by Paul Strathern

“Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one's friends to Western civilization.”―Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe . “Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading.”―Richard Bernstein, New York Times . “Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise.”―Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal . These brief and enlightening explorations of our greatest thinkers bring their ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Philosophical thought is deciphered and made comprehensive and interesting to almost everyone. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the philosopher and his work, authoritative and clearly presented.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Biography, Audiobook, Classics, Politics

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2002

About the author

Paul Strathern (born 1940) is a English writer and academic. He was born in London, and studied at Trinity College, Dublin, after which he served in the Merchant Navy over a period of two years. He then lived on a Greek island. In 1966 he travelled overland to India and the Himalayas. His novel A Season in Abyssinia won a Somerset Maugham Award in 1972.

Besides five novels, he has also written numerous books on science, philosophy, history, literature, medicine and economics.

Reviews

[Sarah Far · Rating 4 out of 5]

انسانها،انسان باشید! این اولین وظیفه‌ی شماست *


ژان ژاک روسو: سیاستمدار،فیلسوف، موسیقی‌دان و نویسنده‌ی ژنوی که نیمی از زندگی خود را در پاریس و چند ماهی انگلستان نزد هیوم گذراند.

در سال ۱۷۵۵ نَخستین شاهکارش مقاله «گفتار در منشا نابرابری» را جرقه‌ای فکری دانسته‌اند که روزی انقلاب کبیر فرانسه را شعله‌ور کرد.


روسو معتقد بود که کل بشر به نفع عده‌‌ی محدودی محکوم به رنج و تلاش ابدی، بردگی و خواری فلا‌کت بار دچار هستند.

مفهوم مالکیت جز عنصری «مهلک» برای بشریت نبود و فقط به عذاب منجر می‌شد.این تعبیر بعدها توسط ژرژ سوِرل فرانسوی، به شعار «مالکیت دزدی است» باب شد.

روسو و فلسفه‌اش با کلمهٔ «آزادی» گره خورده و آن را در دستور کار اجتماعی خود قرار داد و از آن پس همه‌ی انقلاب‌ها آن را هدف خود قرار دادند و در سطح شخصی، همین «آزادی» هسته‌ی اصلی کلی رومانتیسیم شد.


ژان ژاک گویی نیز روانشناسی بود که بسیار به خودشناسی علاقه نشان میداد و می‌گفت ما به جایی رسیده‌ایم که از دیگران می‌پرسیم چه‌ایم،هرگز جرات نمی‌کنیم از خود بپرسیم...و تاکید داشت که باید «سرشت حقیقی» خود را جستجو کنیم
افکار او در این زمینه چنان تاثیرگذار بود که تا امروزه هرگز انکار نشد.

روسو خوب یا بد جهان را تغییر داد
آنچنان که مارکس یک قرن بعد از او آمد: «فیلسوفان جهان را تفسیر کرده‌اند،مهم تغییر دادن است»

ژاکو هنگام مرگ که از پنجره به آسمانی آبی نگاه می‌کرد گفت: «پنجره باز است و خداوند انتظارم را می‌کشد» و در ۶۶ سالگی در آغوش تِرز (همسرش) درگذشت.

همه‌ی آنچه که باید درباره‌ی روسو بدانیم

1-روسو در جوانی منشی سفیر فرانسه بود که این کار، اثر عمیقی بر وی گذاشت تا جایی که نتیجه گرفت «همه چیز کاملا به سیاست بستگی دارد.»

2-در سال ۱۷۵۰ مقاله «گفتار در علوم و هنرها» را نگاشت که دیدگاه کاملاً منفی نسبت به علوم و هنرها داشت و آن را زمینه انحطاط و عقب ماندگی فضیلت در جامعه می‌دانست.

3-اُپرای «رمّال روستا» را در سال ۱۷۵۱ نوشت (این اپرا واقعا روستایی و دلنشینه)

4-از معشوقه‌ی خدمتکار هتلی که روزگاری در آن می‌زیست،صاحب ۵ بچه شد که همه را به پرورشگاه فرستاد. جمله‌ی مشهورِ «برحذر باشید از معلم اخلاقی که بچه‌هایش را رها می‌کند!» مربوط به این ماجراست.

5-کتاب ژولی یا الوئیز جدید را در سال ۱۷۶۱ نوشت.این کتاب که بی‌نهایت محبوب شد، آغازگر سبک رمانتی‌سیسم شد)

6-کتاب The Social contract (قرارداد اجتماعی) با این سخن پرطنین آغاز می‌شود:
انسان آزاد آفریده شده و همه جا در زنجیر است( ۱۷۶۲)

7-وقتی که حالِ روحی بسیار نامساعدی داشت و به انگلستان نزد هیوم فرار کرده بود(به دلیل خشم کلیسا و پارلمان فرانسه) روسو چیزی ارائه کرد که به نظر خیلی‌ها بهترین اثر اوست: اعترافات
Confessions

8-شعار جمهوری فرانسه‌ی نوین
"آزادی،برابری،برادری"

از آرا (اراده عمومی←ایده روسو) گرفته شده است.

9-شاید تعجب کنید،اما افکار «کمونیسم»٬ «نازیسم» و «فاشیسم» از قرارداد اجتماعی روسو ناشی می‌شود.

10-حقوق بشر به معنای امروزی نیز از آثار روسو سرچشمه می‌گیرد.

11-یازده سال بعد از مرگ روسو، انقلاب فرانسه به حکومت استبدادیِ خود پایان داد(با کشتار هزاران انسان)


12-نامه ولتر Voltaire به روسو(که روسو علوم و ادبیات را مایه‌ی شرمساری می‌دانست) یکی از مشهورترین نامه‌های تاریخ ادبیات فرانسه است.
در ایران این نامه ۵ صفحه‌ای را «مینو مشیری» ترجمه کرده.
https://www.maxiran.com/file/143875/f...

*کتاب امیل یا تربیت و آموزش

[Roxana · Rating 4 out of 5]

was thrilled to find out Rousseau was into BDSM. Gives a whole new meaning to his famous catchphrase "man was born free but everywhere he is in chains".

[عدنان العبار · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rousseau is the least intellectual of the renaissance philosophers. This is the sentence that's most stuck with me after reading this book. Indeed, this is not saying that Rousseau is stupid (and neither is it denying that), but it is saying that Rousseau veers from the intellectual tools and follows more emotional and sentimental impulses. In his works, he favors a state of nature he arrives at by daydreaming. In his political analysis of society, he arrives at the conclusions that would explain away his inferiority complex. In his putting his children into adoption, he claims that he has done what's best for them, and wishes that his parents did the same to him. (He was raised in a single-parent household.)

Rousseau is not a formal philosopher. A philosopher presents arguments and backs them up. Rousseau almost never does that. He just claims things and just says what he wishes society to be. Even Marx at least presents arguments (albeit bogus ones) to support his claims. Rousseau doesn't even try to do that. In his Social Contract, he attempts argumentation at several points, but it's just awkward and faulty. In fact, it's broken logic through and through.

This book is more of a biography than an intellectual biography, as opposed to what Strathern does in books of this series. This is aptly chosen, since Rousseau is an impulsive author, and his works were written for certain occasions, as opposed to his main work, The Social Contract. Both his letters on the arts and the one on inequality (the one we're reading for my book club) were written for a competition. The first one won him the prize and national and continental fame. Rousseau afterward spent most of his life as a vagabond. Most of his writings are biographical, and all of his nonfiction books consist of him wishing the world would be in a different way that would have him succesful where he failed in life.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great book. Short, full of biographical information and an introduction to the ideas and works of Rousseau.
It was brilliant reading his life story and how he came up with his theories.
As someone new to philosophy, it sometimes seemed a bit jargon heavy but still understandable.
I'm now interested in reading more Rousseau and his effect on the French Revolution, as well as his ideas on education from his novel 'Emile'.

[Arash Kamangir · Rating 4 out of 5]

خوب خوب خوب

[Igor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering the size, very useful.

[Bells · Rating 2 out of 5]

Insufficient

[#DÏ4B7Ø Chinnamasta-Bhairav · Rating 2 out of 5]

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To SEE a WORLD in a Grain of Sand,
And a HEAVEN in a Wild Flower,
Hold INFINITY in the palm of your hand
And ETERNITY in an Hour"
~ William Blake ~

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“Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows.” Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Form is Emptiness; Emptiness is form.
Form is not different than Emptiness;
Emptiness is not different than form
~ Heart Sutra ~

Like the ocean and its waves,
inseparable yet distinct

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" I and The Father are one,
I am The Truth,
The Life and The Path.”

Like a river flowing from its source,
connected and continuous

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Thy kingdom come.
Let the reign of divine
Truth, Life, and Love
be established in me,
and rule out of me all sin;
and may Thy Word
enrich the affections of all mankind

A mighty oak tree standing firm against the storm,
As sunlight scatters the shadows of night
A river nourishing the land it flows through

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[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strathern provides a summary of Rousseau's life and works in mostly fair fashion until discussing Rousseau giving his five children up to a home for abandoned children.

Favorite quotes:

"It was he who encouraged the introduction of both liberty and irrationality into the public domain."

"Rousseau points out that humans are the only species to create their own history. This means we are responsible for our plight (and thus are responsible for getting out of it). When we compare ourselves with other natural creatures, we see that our social corruption has rendered us miserable. We feel unfulfilled, unhappy, and unequal."

"One can all but hear the swish of the cane that first aroused the eight year old boy."

"After long showing you every possible mark of friendship and sympathy for several years, there is nothing left for me but to pity you. - Madam d'Epinay"

"Rousseau found himself forced to concede that most people were not intelligent. ... People were not always capable of seeing the implications of what they willed."

[Theo Milos · Rating 2 out of 5]

A french philosopher that lived during 1700s, more specificly the Enlightenment.

He believed that humans need to be irrational, which he explained in rationality. Rousseau was the first to think that we should seen out and experience our true nature. “Everything depend on politics. People is everything nothing what the government makes of it.” ”Man is born free and everywhere held in chains. Liberty is an essential part of humanity. To renonce freedom is to renonce human quality.”.

“Power should never be great enough for its owner to exercise violence. No citizen should never be wealthy to buy another nor poor enough to be forced to sell himself. The state should not allow neither rich men nor beggars.”.

Children should be themselves. They exist in a state of nature. In Emile, where he only wrote about boys (got criticized for this), he states how parents should treat their children.

His most famous works are: On the social contrary, confessions and Emile.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rousseau was definitely quite a character, probably the philosopher who was least like the dry academic image we currently associate with philosophers.

As usual Strathern is quite good with biographical details but this time I think he did a decent job describing some of his ideas.

One thing that was interesting to me was realizing how much of the ideas of romanticism we now take for granted, especially in literature:
-The primacy of the individual,
-The validity of pursuing your own happiness
-Emotionally identifying with heroic characters (as opposed to just admiring them)
-Putting value on intense passion (whether from characters or within ourselves)

These were things that were not emphasized in classic literature but we take for granted now in all kinds of popular novels and many movies and TV series.

Interesting.

[e.h.d · Rating 3 out of 5]

i love this series for paul strathern’s snarky, unforgiving takes focused on exposing philosophers personal flaws because, aside from being entertaining, i think knowing that these people were human helps us to understand where the faults in their philosophies lie. that being said. this particular episode was scathing. it was just one long extended roast calling out rousseau for being a dumbass and a lil freak with a dommy mommy kink. i swear to god. what was sacrificed in objectivity was made up for in entertainment value in this one.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

45/100

Short little book about Rousseau's life and work with a concise listing of his theories and ideas
Always enjoy Stratherns books , good summary and always something I didn't knew before .

The book shows off Rousseau's idealism and social critiques, his dreamy kind and analysis of society .
But he was better at making bold statements than actually backing them up with detailed arguments. It's more like passionate wishing than solid philosophy sometimes.

Overall, if you want a quick, easy introduction to Rousseau, this one would do it .

[Kimberly Wyatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

He was the first to encourage people to discover their true selves. Russ was a masochist, which I find very interesting & had a BDSM relationship with an older dominatrix. I did not expect that tidbit of golden nugget. He studied the personality and he thought that humanity was good, but it was corrupted by civilization and culture. He believed that in order to be our true selves, we had to be in nature. The further away we get from nature the more corrupt we can be by society. He believes we spent too much time asking others what we are instead of telling ourselves what we are. I really like him & I want to read his works.

[Rodney Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's amazing what you don't learn in school. Once again Paul Strathern has pulled back the curtain and succinctly encapsulated the essence of a life and philosophy that has probably influenced the thinking of everyone in the west - most without ever knowing it. The level at which Rousseau influenced Karl Marx, and lived a highly questionable lifestyle while a member of the Calvinist church is astonishing. My eyes have been opened. Thank you once again, Paul Strathern!

[hossein Babadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب بطور خلاصه (مانند سایر کتابهای مجموعه آشنایی با فیلسوفان نشر مرکز) به معرفی ژان ژاک روسو فیلسوف،نویسنده و آهنگساز مشهور فرانسوی-سوییسی می پردازد
از قسمت های جالب کتاب به دیدگاه روسو نسبت به زنان که کار بایسته آنان را فرزند آوری می داند، سپردن 5 تا بچه اش به پرورشگاه و ازدواج با رختشوی بیسواد هتل می توان اشاره کرد
لازم شد بزودی کتاب اعترافات روسو رو بخونم

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books are a fun introduction to the great philosophers. I would give the series 4 stars, but individual books can vary.

Rousseau was an interesting guy and I like the biographical details Strathern provides. I didn’t know Rousseau had a thing for spanking or that he had abandoned five of his children to an orphanage.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best of the "Philosopher in 90 minute" series -- covering both biography and major philosophical ideas of Rousseau. Rousseau's influence over the following 200+ years has been massive -- from the French Revolution/Terror shortly thereafter, US independence, Marxism, 1848 revolutions, etc. to more modern philosophy and events.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another example of “don’t judge the message by the messenger.” Not what I was expecting to find after years of citing Rousseau in debate. That said, it’s nice to be reminded that great figures are flawed humans. We should remember that because if these flawed humans can achieve such great things, so can we flawed humans.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strathern tells us, “It is possible simultaneously to both love and hate Rousseau, for his work as well as his effect.” To hold two conflicting ideas in the mind is sometimes hypocrisy, at other times an achievement. This one qualifies as an achievement.

[Dylan]

The books spends a weird amount of its limited time on Rousseau's personal tastes for Italian music and BDSM, and seemingly any time it conceded that Rousseau made a good point, it was "admittedly" or "begrudgingly" or "surprisingly" or something like that.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woof, never really read about him, and this is a good start. I checked out a lot books on him, but I think I'm going to return them because anyone who sends 5 children to the orphanage doesn't merit my respect.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is a great introduction for anyone who wants to dive briefly into the mentioned philosopher’s life, inspiration and works. Used the scribd audiobook which was crisp, concise and kept me fairly engaged. Highly recommend as an introduction before diving in to the major works.

[Samuel Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative introduction. About as expected for a “90-minute” philosophy book. Would suggest if doing a crash course on getting the key takeaways from relevant philosophers but would not for any type of deeper investigation.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good summary in a manageable time.
Looks like Strathern has a series of these summary's which should be useful.

[Kerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellently condensed biography with timelines, major works overview, and insights.

[Desollado · Rating 5 out of 5]

realmente me descubri como un neofito en el tema.

[Beth Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

SUPER helpful in understanding the context of 'The Social Contract'.

[Blake Booth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, short little intro.

[Yasser Maniram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a time travel machine in immersive depth and writing.