Publisher's Synopsis
"Rousseau's Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts challenged the Enlightenment belief in the perfectibility of human nature through reason, and questioned the social and political effects of the pursuit of knowledge." - Michel Foucault
"Rousseau may be said to have founded the romantic movement. The great ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which inspired the French Revolution, were first formulated by him. He was one of the first thinkers to emphasize the importance of emotion and feeling in human affairs." - Bertrand Russell A new 2023 translation into English from the original manuscripts of Rousseau's classic and influential 1750 Discourse on Sciences and Arts (Discours sur les sciences et les arts). Here he argues that the progress of the arts and sciences has led to moral and social decline. Rousseau believed that the development of human reason had led to a loss of compassion and virtue, and that science and technology had created a society that was more unequal and less free.
