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In this article, I review Frederick Neuhouser's latest book, Rousseau's Critique of Inequality, while critically assessing the legacy of Rousseau's ideas on inequality and amour-propre for contemporary political philosophy. I challenge the widely held notion that the account of equality set out in the Social Contract should be read as a (partial) remedy to the problems generated by amour-propre, and suggest that we have to turn to Rousseau's other writings to reconstruct his own political remedies for these problems. I then draw attention to a much neglected dimension of Rousseau's critique of inequality, which concerns the effect inequality has on our ability to identify with other humans and feel compassion for them. Taken together, these considerations highlight some of the limitations of the dominant Kantian–Rawlsian strand of Rousseau interpretation within contemporary liberal political philosophy.

This article traces the main changes to Thomas Hobbes's account of liberty between the Elements of Law and Leviathan in order to re-evaluate his challenge to republican ideas of liberty. It contests Quentin Skinner's recent interpretation while advancing two interrelated theses. First, it argues that between these works Hobbes attempted, but ultimately failed, to reconcile two different conceptions of liberty. Second, it shows that the changes to Hobbes's account of liberty were not driven by his engagement with republican debates. The article concludes by indicating how the analysis challenges prominent historical narratives about republicanism set forth by its contemporary exponents. Adapted from the source document.

In this article, I review Frederick Neuhouser's latest book, Rousseau's Critique of Inequality, while critically assessing the legacy of Rousseau's ideas on inequality and amour-propre for contemporary political philosophy. I challenge the widely held notion that the account of equality set out in the Social Contract should be read as a (partial) remedy to the problems generated by amour-propre, and suggest that we have to turn to Rousseau's other writings to reconstruct his own political remedies for these problems. I then draw attention to a much neglected dimension of Rousseau's critique of inequality, which concerns the effect inequality has on our ability to identify with other humans and feel compassion for them. Taken together, these considerations highlight some of the limitations of the dominant Kantian–Rawlsian strand of Rousseau interpretation within contemporary liberal political philosophy.

Thomas Hobbes once wrote that the body politic "is a fictitious body", thereby contrasting it with a natural body. In this essay I argue that a central purpose of Hobbes's political philosophy was to cast the fiction of the body politic upon the imaginations of his readers. I elucidate the role of the imagination in Hobbes's account of human nature, before examining two ways in which his political philosophy sought to transform the imaginations of his audience. The first involved effacing the false ideas that led to sedition by enlightening men from the kingdom of spiritual darkness. I thus advance an interpretation of Hobbes's eschatology focused upon his attempt to dislodge certain theological conceptions from the minds of men. The second involved replacing this religious imagery with the fiction of the body politic and the image of the mortal God, which, I argue, Hobbes developed in order to transform the way that men conceive of their relationship with the commonwealth. I conclude by adumbrating the implications of my reading for Hobbes's social contract theory and showing why the covenant that generates the commonwealth is best understood as imaginary.