Political PhilosophyBook · 1762
The Social Contract
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau tries to work out how people can submit to authority and still be free, and answers with the general will, a concept that has been read as the foundation of democracy and as a licence for tyranny. The link is to a volume that also carries the Discourses.
Why you should read this
The book that gave political theory the phrase 'forced to be free,' arguing that legitimate authority rests on the collective will of the people rather than divine right or conquest. Rousseau's argument here is widely credited with shaping revolutionary political thought in France a few decades later.
- Field
- Political Philosophy
- Form
- Non-fiction
- Published
- 1762
- Themes
- Political Philosophy
