J. J. Rousseau: An Afterlife of Words

Eli Friedlander reads Rousseau's autobiography, Reveries of the Solitary Walker, as philosophy. Reading this work against Descartes's Meditations, Friedlander shows how Rousseau's memorable transformation of experience through writing opens up the possibility of affirming even the most dejected state of being and allows the emergence of the innocence of nature out of the ruins of all social attachments.