On the Happiness of the Philosophic Life – Reflections on Rousseau`s Rêveries in Two Books (Emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) - Hardcover

Meier, Heinrich; Berman, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022607403X ISBN 13: 9780226074030

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2016

Synopsis

On the Happiness of the Philosophic Life presents Heinrich Meier’s confrontation with Rousseau’s Rêveries, the philosopher’s most beautiful and daring work, as well as his last and least understood. Bringing to bear more than thirty years of study of Rousseau, Meier unfolds his stunningly original interpretation in two parts. 
           
The first part of On the Happiness of the Philosophic Life approaches the Rêveries not as another autobiographical text in the tradition of the Confessions and the Dialogues, but as a reflection on the philosophic life and the distinctive happiness it provides. The second turns to a detailed analysis of a work referred to in the Rêveries, the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” which triggered Rousseau’s political persecution when it was originally published as part of Émile.  In his examination of this most controversial of Rousseau’s writings, which aims to lay the foundations for a successful nonphilosophic life, Meier brings to light the differences between natural religion as expressed by the Vicar and Rousseau’s natural theology. Together, the two reciprocally illuminating parts of this study provide an indispensable guide to Rousseau and to the understanding of the nature of the philosophic life.

“[A] dense but precise and enthralling analysis.”―New Yorker

About this title

About the Authors

Heinrich Meier is director emeritus of the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation in Munich, professor of philosophy at the University of Munich, and permanent visiting professor in the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He is the author of nine books, including On the Happiness of the Philosophic Life and Political Philosophy and the Challenge of Revealed Religion.

Robert Berman is professor of philosophy at Xavier University of Louisiana.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 022607403X
• ISBN 13: 9780226074030
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400