Rousseau on Language and Writing: Two Perspectives

Barry Stocker · John Bolender

May 2014 · Andrews UK Limited

About this eBook

Two contemporary philosophers take two very different approaches to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Essay on the Origin of Languages, and then each reflects upon the approach of the other. Barry Stocker takes a deconstructionist approach, discussing the importance of Rousseau in the work of Jacques Derrida. John Bolender approaches Rousseau's Essay in terms of cognitive science, most especially in light of the theories of Noam Chomsky and Alan Page Fiske. Both authors agree that Rousseau's Essay still has much to teach us.

About the author

Barry Stocker has degrees from the Universities of Warwick and Sussex, and teaches philosophy at Istanbul Technical University. He is the author of books on Derrida and Kierkegaard, and has also edited, or co-edited, books on Wittgenstein, Derrida, and Nietzsche. Currently working on books on Foucault's political thought and the philosophy of the novel, his work focuses on the history of Continental European philosophy along with various topics in political theory, ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy and literature, drawing on Continental European philosophy, and other aspects of the history of philosophy. John Bolender (born 1965) is a philosopher of cognition whose books include The Self-Organizing Social Mind and Digital Social Mind. With a PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University, Bolender has taught at Middle East Technical University and has had visiting positions at Princeton and Western Universities. He has published articles in Biology and Philosophy, Lingua, New Ideas in Psychology, The Journal of Consciousness Studies, and Minds and Machines among other journals.