Between Athens and the Port-Royal; contextualising Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Plato

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Increasing attention has been paid to Platonism in Rousseau’s moral and political thought; however, there has been incomplete consideration of his annotated Platonis Operum–a Ficino Latin translation. Addressing this lacuna, the article details Rousseau’s study of Plato’s works. It can be shown that Rousseau’s reading of Plato commenced no earlier than the summer of 1737 during his residence at Les Charmettes. At this time, Rousseau had been considering a set of largely seventeenth-century philosophical texts, which allows contextualisation of his encounter with Plato and the themes he drew upon. As part of a cluster of intellectual activities, Rousseau canvassed Platonic tropes of sublimated Eros and disinterestedness. Meanwhile, he conceptualised ideas as objects of the understanding typical of Locke and a seventeenth-century discourse known as the ‘way of ideas’. These interests challenge existing accounts of Rousseau’s Platonism; moreover, Rousseau’s mature works attempt to reconcile Platonic beliefs on sublime love with ideas conceptualised under a demi-Lockean episteme.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)18-36
Number of pages19
JournalHistory of European Ideas
Volume49
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Keywords

  • Eros
  • moral psychology
  • Plato
  • Platonism
  • Rousseau
  • ‘way of ideas’

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Between Athens and the Port-Royal; contextualising Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Plato'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this