David Lay Williams is Associate Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point.

“Rousseau is too often thought to have waved his hands at what successors like Kant and Freud would really grasp. Williams is to be congratulated for following Rousseau’s own lead to Plato, his greatest predecessor. Surprisingly, his Platonic Rousseau, though rooted in the past, proves a greater original and more important guide to our own time than the Rousseaus who gesture toward the future.”—Jonathan Marks, Ursinus College

• ContentsForewordList of Frequently Cited WorksPrefaceAcknowledgments1.The Context, Part 1: Metaphysics and Politics in Hobbes and Locke2.The Context, Part 2: Materialism and Platonism in Modern Europe3.Metaphysics and Morality: The Platonism of the Savoyard Vicar4.The General Will: On the Meaning and Priority of Justice in Rousseau5.Of Chains, Caves, and Slaves: Allegory and Illusion in Rousseau6.Rousseau's System of Checks and Balances: The Negative Function of Justice7.Kant's Conceptions of the General Will: The Formalist Interpretation8.The Foucauldian Legacy: Critiques Without Justice?ReferencesIndex

David Lay Williams is Associate Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point.

“Rousseau is too often thought to have waved his hands at what successors like Kant and Freud would really grasp. Williams is to be congratulated for following Rousseau’s own lead to Plato, his greatest predecessor. Surprisingly, his Platonic Rousseau, though rooted in the past, proves a greater original and more important guide to our own time than the Rousseaus who gesture toward the future.”—Jonathan Marks, Ursinus College

• ContentsForewordList of Frequently Cited WorksPrefaceAcknowledgments1.The Context, Part 1: Metaphysics and Politics in Hobbes and Locke2.The Context, Part 2: Materialism and Platonism in Modern Europe3.Metaphysics and Morality: The Platonism of the Savoyard Vicar4.The General Will: On the Meaning and Priority of Justice in Rousseau5.Of Chains, Caves, and Slaves: Allegory and Illusion in Rousseau6.Rousseau's System of Checks and Balances: The Negative Function of Justice7.Kant's Conceptions of the General Will: The Formalist Interpretation8.The Foucauldian Legacy: Critiques Without Justice?ReferencesIndex

David Lay Williams is Associate Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point.

“Rousseau is too often thought to have waved his hands at what successors like Kant and Freud would really grasp. Williams is to be congratulated for following Rousseau’s own lead to Plato, his greatest predecessor. Surprisingly, his Platonic Rousseau, though rooted in the past, proves a greater original and more important guide to our own time than the Rousseaus who gesture toward the future.”—Jonathan Marks, Ursinus College

• ContentsForewordList of Frequently Cited WorksPrefaceAcknowledgments1.The Context, Part 1: Metaphysics and Politics in Hobbes and Locke2.The Context, Part 2: Materialism and Platonism in Modern Europe3.Metaphysics and Morality: The Platonism of the Savoyard Vicar4.The General Will: On the Meaning and Priority of Justice in Rousseau5.Of Chains, Caves, and Slaves: Allegory and Illusion in Rousseau6.Rousseau's System of Checks and Balances: The Negative Function of Justice7.Kant's Conceptions of the General Will: The Formalist Interpretation8.The Foucauldian Legacy: Critiques Without Justice?ReferencesIndex