Philosophical Solitude
David Hume versus Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4495014 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Barbara Taylor (0000-0002-2971-2779, Queen Mary University of London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 89 |
| Pages | 1-21 |
| Publication date | 2020-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History Workshop Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hwj/dbz048 |
| OpenAlex | W3002077087 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 6 |
The philosopher meditating alone in his study is a cliché of western culture. But behind the hackneyed image lies a long history of controversy. Was solitude the 'palace of learning' that many learned people, religious and secular, perceived it, or a debilitating state of solipsistic misery and intellectual degeneracy, as its enemies described it? In the mid eighteenth century the debate became fiercely personal during a public quarrel between two philosophical luminaries: David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the 1760s Rousseau faced persecution from state and church authorities in France and Switzerland. Hume gave him refuge in England. The relationship rapidly turned toxic as the convivial Hume sought to manage his notoriously reclusive charge. Solitude became a casus belli in a war of words that fascinated intellectual Europe. But the fracas was more complex than it appeared. Who are we with, when we are alone? For Hume, no less than Rousseau, the question proved inescapable, in both his personal career and his philosophy. A closer look at two thinkers who, on the surface, were a study in opposites, reveals much about the vicissitudes of solitude in the life of the creative mind
Art · Literature · Persecution · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Solitude · State (computer science) · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,27 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |