Resumo: Neste trabalho pretende-se apresentar algumas reflexões sobre a trajetória que leva Rousseau não apenas a aproximar-se à botânica, mas, sobretudo, a definir seu estatuto epistemológico, bem como metodológico. Nesse sentido, propõe-se mostrar em que termos – no interior do amplo panorama intelectual rousseauniano oriundo dos escritos e das cartas dos últimos três lustros da vida do filosofo genebrino – a botânica assume, para Rousseau, uma peculiar autônoma fisionomia e, ao mesmo tempo, torna-se paradigma para a própria filosofia. Rousseau and (...) botany: a promenade between scientific observation and contemplation: This paper aims to present some reflections about the trajectory that leads Rousseau not only to approach botany, but, above all, to define its epistemological as well as methodological status. In this sense, we propose to show in what terms – in the broad Rousseauan intellectual panorama related to writings and letters of the last sixteen years of the Genevan philosopher’s life – botany assumes for Rousseau a peculiar autonomous physiognomy and, at the same time, becomes a paradigm for philosophy itself.Keywords: Rousseau; botany; epistemology; promenade; observation; herborization. (shrink)

It can be said that Rousseau is one of the most acute thinkers of the corruption of civilisation. In fact, the Second Discourse and the Essay on the Origins of Languages could be read as elaborate analyses of advancing social and cultural decline inasmuch as mankind is continually moving away from the original state of natural innocence. But Rousseau’s idea of corruption is not straightforward. I try to show that in the Essay, Rousseau emphasizes the natural causes for corruption. I (...) argue that an opposition between necessity and contingency, which more accurately represents the two modes operating in Rousseau’s doctrine, should replace the standard nature/culture divide. The contingency of natural catastrophes is found to be ultimately responsible for the corruption in the social realm, which is therefore largely driven by natural causes. (shrink)

: I explore Rousseau's account of the problem of dependence by means of an analysis of the distinction he makes between dependence on things and dependence on men. With reference to his Second Discourse, I argue that dependence on things alone exists only in the case of primitive man in the earliest stages of the state of nature, while dependence on men is more properly to be understood as dependence on other human beings as mediated by dependence on things. I (...) go on to argue that in the light of Rousseau's account of dependence and his description in the Second Discourse of a spontaneous dependence and inequality generating process, there is a significant problem with his solution to the problem of dependence on other human beings proposed in the Social Contract. This problem can be understood in terms of the relation of the idea of will to that of necessity, and I suggest that Rousseau was himself aware of it. (shrink)

Lamarck's perspective on change within the organic world, in particular his conception of "la marche de la nature," , crystallized during the last decade of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th. I argue that it should be viewed as resulting in part from interactions with, and transfers from, the social thought—modes of thinking, ways of conceptualizing, models, metaphors and analogies—of the decades before the French revolution and of the revolutionary decade itself. Moreover, Lamarck's involvement with the (...) new institutional frameworks initiated during the revolutionary period had brought him into direct contacts with the then prevalent modes of discourse on things social. (shrink)

En este trabajo se discuten dos modelos opuestos de construcción de la identidad a partir de la contraposición que hace el filósofo Bernard Williams de las figuras de Rousseau y el sobrino de Rameau de Diderot. Frente a la concepción representacional de la identidad como copia o proyección de un ser interior, se propone una noción performativa de la personalidad basada en la espontaneidad y la multiplicidad como fuentes del sujeto contemporáneo. En el trasfondo de esta reflexión se encuentra la (...) hipótesis de que ambos métodos de producción ética de la identidad personal responden a concepciones estéticas profundamente enraizadas, una más próxima al modelo pictórico de copia de un original y la otra, teatral, basada en la importancia de la interpretación en los procesos de creación. (shrink)

Si el debate en torno a los límites morales de la expresión artística representa una constante de la historia cultural occidental, la crítica al arte dramático constituye un caso señalado de esta polémica por su viveza y persistencia. Ambas características se aprecian significativamente en la interesante confluencia argumentativa que se da entre la Carta a M. D’Alembert de Jean Jacques Rousseau y la literatura cristiana primitiva. Su vinculación se explicaría por mediación de la célebre Querelle du théâtre, que opuso a (...) reformadores y rigoristas durante los siglos XVII y XVIII en Francia. Este artículo se ordena a mostrar algunos puntos de contacto entre la crítica de Rousseau y la de Tertuliano y Agustín, mostrando cómo argumentos aducidos originariamente en un contexto religioso tienen presencia en la esfera laica. (shrink)

Tahiti is synonymous with a long history of exoticism in French thought. Soon after the publication of Bougainville’s travel accounts, it quickly became rightly or wrongly the epitome of Rousseau’s state of nature, and also led to the development of anthropology before anthropology. In this paper, I attempt to reconstruct the discussion between Rousseau, Bougainville and Diderot about exoticism and otherness, and examine the consequences of the 'discovery' of Tahiti for French thought at the time.