Università Roma Tre

This course is dedicated to Rousseau's second 'Discourse' and 'Social Contract'. Particular attention will be paid to their reflection on human nature and the forms of civil and political life, as well as to how this reflection evolved between the first and the second work.

This course will consider the following topics and questions. 'Côté physique' and 'côté métaphysique ou moral': socialization as alienation or as realization of the human? Needs and passions: amour propre as corruption or as the development of amour de soi? Ownership and Power: Despotism as Truth or as Denial of the Covenant? Particular will and general will: identity or opposition between man and citizen?

- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discorso sull’origine e i fondamenti della disuguaglianza tra gli uomini, in J.-J. Rousseau, Scritti politici, vol. I (Roma-Bari, Laterza)
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Il contratto sociale, in J.-J. Rousseau, Scritti politici, vol. II (Roma-Bari, Laterza)

A book of your choice
- Paolo Casini, Introduzione a Rousseau (Roma-Bari, Laterza)
- Robert Derathé, Rousseau e la scienza politica del suo tempo (Bologna, Mulino)
- Gianni Francioni, Gli illuministi e lo Stato. I modelli politici tra utopia e riforma (Pavia, Ibis)
- Annamaria Loche, La società possibile. Una lettura del 'Contrat social' di J.-J. Rousseau (Milano, FrancoAngeli)
- Sergio Moravia, La scienza dell'uomo nel Settecento (Roma-Bari, Laterza)
- Francesco Toto, L’origine e la storia. Il ‘Discorso sull’origine dell’uguaglianza’ di Rousseau (Pisa, Ets)