Alan Blooms new translation of Emile, Rousseaus masterpiece on
the education and training of the young, is the first in more than
seventy years. In it, Bloom, whose magnificent translation of
Platos Republic has been universally hailed as a virtual
rediscovery of that timeless text, again brings together the
translators gift for journeying between two languages and cultures
and the philosophers perception of the true meaning and
significance of the issues being examined in the work. The result
is a clear, readable, and highly engrossing text that at the same
time offers a wholly new sense of the importance and relevance of
Rousseaus thought to us. In addition to his translation, Bloom
provides a brilliant introduction that relates the structure and
themes of the book to the vital preoccupation''s of our own age,
particularly in the field of education, but also more generally to
the current concerns about the limits and possibilities of human
nature. Thus in this translation Emile, long a classic in the
history of Western thought and educational theory, becomes
something more: a prescription, fresh and dazzling, for the
bringing up of autonomous, responsiblethat is, truly
democratichuman beings.
關於作者:
Allan Bloom, formerly a professor of political theory at the
University of Toronto, has recently become a professor of The
Committee on Social Thought and in The College, University of
Chicago.