The natural goodness of man Book

The first great source of Rousseau misinterpretation has been the extraordinary strangeness of his personality and life, which has made it very difficult for scholars to treat his arguments seriously as arguments rather than as symptoms.To speak only of the aspect of Rousseau's thought to which the author primarily confines himself in this work, one must explain how 'the natural goodness of man' systematically produces the Social Contract. Through such an exposition, were it possible, one might reasonably claim to have understood Rousseau - the parts and the whole of this thought - in the specific manner in which he himself declares he must be understood. This present work attempts such an exposition.