Pubblicato nel 1754, il testo di Rousseau è all'origine di tutte le successive teorie socialiste e comuniste. Ma è anche, come è ormai comunemente riconosciuto, una delle fonti maggiori della riflessione antropologica. E oggi è difficile non riconoscervi un'anticipazione impressionante delle più recenti suggestioni dell'ecologia. Questa edizione, curata da Valentino Gerratana, riporta in appendice la corrispondenza di Voltaire e Rousseau a proposito del discorso.

L''Emilio', insieme al 'Contratto sociale' l'opera più famosa e più diffusa di Jean-Jacques Rousseau, fu pubblicato nel 1762. Trascorsi oltre due secoli, nulla di Rousseau è andato perduto. I temi fondamentali della sua ricerca sono ancora attualissimi; anzi, hanno conosciuto una vitalità straordinaria anche nei nostri anni, quando si è avvertita universalmente la necessità e l'urgenza di difendere la naturalità dell'uomo dalle sovrastrutture che minacciano di soffocarla.

In A Discourse on Inequality Rousseau sets out to demonstrate how the growth of civilization corrupts man’s natural happiness and freedom by creating artificial inequalities of wealth, power and social privilege. Contending that primitive man was equal to his fellows, Rousseau believed that as societies become more sophisticated, the strongest and most intelligent members of the community gain an unnatural advantage over their weaker brethren, and that constitutions set up to rectify these imbalances through peace and justice in fact do nothing but perpetuate them. Rousseau’s political and social arguments in the Discourse were a hugely influential denunciation of the social conditions of his time and one of the most revolutionary documents of the eighteenth-century.

L'uomo è nato libero', ma 'ovunque si trova in catene'. A partire da questa severa e realistica constatazione, nel 'Contratto sociale' (1762) Rousseau raccoglie una delle sfide decisive della modernità: la ricerca di un ordine politico fondato non sulla forza ma sul diritto. La versione del contratto proposta da Rousseau crea una 'comunità' in cui il diritto di cittadinanza si esprime nella facoltà di partecipare alla deliberazione pubblica sulle leggi, che incarnano la volontà generale. In questa prospettiva lo 'stato civile' diventa la premessa per realizzare la 'libertà morale'. In questa edizione gli apparati di commento e note sono stati puntualmente aggiornati per restituire l'attualità delle parole di Rousseau: un'opera essenziale per comprendere le radici del moderno concetto di democrazia.

E' un'opera di ispirazione antimonarchica. Possiamo dire del Contratto sociale ciò che il suo autore diceva del Principe di Machiavelli: è il libro dei repubblicani. Rifiutando la sovranità ai re, ripetendo ch'essa deve appartenere al popolo e non può che appartenere ad esso, Rousseau si pronuncia apertamente per la democrazia. Certo non è una democrazia nel senso ristretto in cui l'intende nel Contratto sociale, ossia come governo diretto dal popolo, ma in quel senso largo che la parola assume nella Lettre à d'Alembert: una democrazia è uno Stato dove i sudditi e il sovrano sono gli stessi uomini considerati sotto diversi rapporti' (dal saggio introduttivo).

In 1758, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert proposed the public establishment of a theater in Geneva--and Jean-Jacques Rousseau vigorously objected. Their exchange, collected in volume ten of this acclaimed series, offers a classic debate over the political importance of the arts. As these two leading figures of the Enlightenment argue about censorship, popular versus high culture, and the proper role of women in society, their dispute signals a declaration of war that divided the Enlightenment into contending factions. These two thinkers confront the contentious issues surrounding public support for the arts through d'Alembert's original proposal, Rousseau's attack, and the first English translation of d'Alembert's response as well as correspondence relating to the exchange.

The volume also contains Rousseau's own writings for the theater, including plays and libretti for operas, most of which have never been translated into English. Among them, Le Devin du village was the most popular French opera of the eighteenth century while his late work Pygmalion is a profound meditation on the relation between an artist and his creation. This volume offers English readers a unique opportunity to appreciate Rousseau's writings for the theater as well as his attack on the theater as a public institution.

In his pioneering treatise on education the great French philosopher presented concepts that had a significant influence on the development of pedagogy, and yet many of his ideas still sound radical today. Written in reaction to the stultifying system of rote learning and memorization prevalent throughout Europe in Rousseau's time, Émile is a utopian vision of child-centered education, full of the sentiments of Romanticism, which Rousseau himself inspired.
Imagining a typical boy named Émile, Rousseau creates an ideal model of one-on-one tutelage from infancy to manhood with himself as the child's mentor. 'Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of Nature; but everything degenerates in the hands of man.' This is the first of many provocative statements that characterize this work and are a hallmark of Rousseau's arresting rhetoric. As in so many of his other famous works, here too Rousseau asserts his main thesis that human beings by nature are good; it is only the distorting influences of civilization that have corrupted them.
If this is true, then in educating children one must do nothing to interfere with human nature in its natural course. Far from being the chief means by which society inculcates its rules and principles, education should be the method of helping youths discover the inherent truths of their own human nature. From infancy to young adulthood learning should come purely from personal experience. Rather than imparting facts, teachers should foster self-discovery, so that knowledge is acquired through following innate curiosity, not vicariously through the statements of others.
Educators as well as students of philosophy will find much to admire in Rousseau's original and still radical ideas.

Le opere fondamentali del pensiero filosofico di tutti i tempi. In edizione economica, con testo a fronte e nuovi apparati didattici. Testo originale nell'edizione di Robert Derathé, traduzione di Maria Garin e introduzione di Tito Magri.

'I am now alone on earth, no longer having any brother, neighbor, friend, or society other than myself' proclaimed Rousseau in Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Reveries, along with Botanical Writings and Letter to Franquieres, were all written at the end of his life, a period when Rousseau renounced his occupation as author and ceased publishing his works. Presenting himself as an unwilling societal outcast, he nonetheless crafted each with a sharp eye on his readership. Whether addressing himself, a mother hoping to interest her child in botany, or a confused young nobleman, his dialogue reflects the needs of his interlocutor and of future readers.

Although very different in style, these three works concern overlapping subjects. Their unity comes from the relation of the other writings to the Reveries, which consists of ten meditative 'walks' during which Rousseau considers his life and thought. The third and fourth walks discuss truth, morality, and religious belief, which are the themes of the Letter to Franquieres; while the seventh is a lengthy discussion of botany as a model for contemplative activity. The overarching themes of the volume--the relations among philosophic or scientific contemplation, religion, and morality--provide Rousseau's most intimate and final reflections on the difficulties involved in understanding nature.