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This essay investigates the importance of Mr and Mrs James and Hannah Burgh of Newington Green for Mary Wollstonecraft's life and career during the 1780s. Newington Green was a hugely productive environment for Wollstonecraft, but the Burghs offered a particular combination of support and provocation. Hannah Burgh was Wollstonecraft's mentor and financial supporter from 1784, during her residence in Newington Green, and until she became the protégée of Joseph Johnson in 1787. Through Hannah Burgh, Wollstonecraft accessed the works of the late James Burgh, who had died in 1775. Burgh's pedagogical writings were important intertexts for Wollstonecraft's early works, especially in their account of female education, their "rational" treatments of scripture, and their responses to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Wollstonecraft builds on Burgh's writings in her pedagogical works, and he continues to be an important interlocutor even after Wollstonecraft's departure from Newington Green. Burgh's anthology The Art of Speaking (1761) is a model and probable source for one of Wollstonecraft's first publications for Johnson, The Female Reader (1789). In her own anthology, however, Wollstonecraft offers a distinct account of reading as a tool of improvement, and builds a new canon of reading texts for women and girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reframes the approach to Rousseau in political philosophy and histories of political thought by emphasizing some neglected aesthetic dimensions of amour-propre and the general will. I argue that Rousseau's account of the origins of amour-propre in aesthetic judgment alerts us to his view that the potentially dangerous effects of amour-propre can be mitigated if its 'extension' to others is grounded in an aesthetic appreciation of beauty. This pushes back against the predominant 'revisionist' interpretation of amour-propre in terms of Hegelian 'recognition' or Rawlsian 'social bases of self-respect'. It also clears the ground for my recovery of Rousseau's neglected analogy between the general will and what he called the general taste. I argue that reconstructing the general taste and reconsidering the general will in its light yields a significant argument by analogy: like the general taste, the general will is democratically determined by majority vote, not constrained by transcendent standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tekst jest polemiką z polemiczno-krytycznymi uwagami Michała Kruszelnickiego do mojej książki pt. Jednostka, zło, historia w myśli Rousseau (Łódź 2022). Dotyczy on kluczowych kwestii i problemów myśli Rousseau, od dawna nękających umysły komentatorów jego dzieła. W swojej dyskusji z Polemistą podtrzymuję główne tezy i rozwiązania interpretacyjne przedstawione w książce, wychodząc z odmiennego widzenia dzieła Rousseau, to znaczy podkreślając jego ewolucję i odrzucając koncyliacyjno-humanistyczną, choć nie zawsze konsekwentną, wykładnię Polemisty, który na ogół usiłuje pogodzić większość wątków myśli Rousseau. Niemniej jednak jego zasadne, ciekawe i niekonwencjonalne a czasami, jak sądzę, nieco prowokacyjne uwagi zmusiły mnie do ponownego podjęcia wysiłku koncepcyjno-interpretacyjnego i, w rezultacie, do rozwinięcia i pogłębienia argumentacji i analiz zawartych w książce, nie zawsze jasnych i mogących rodzić niezrozumienie. Rozwijam więc przede wszystkim rozumienie związku między logiką eksperymentalną i logiką systemową, pokazując ich wspólną, dopełniającą się dynamikę, bronię tezy o porażce dzieła Rousseau usiłującego dokonać syntezy wspólnotowej i indywidualistycznej perspektywy swej myśli, by pokazać porzucenie tych usiłowań w samotniczo-kontemplacyjnych Przechadzkach samotnego marzyciela, i wreszcie uwydatniam argumentacyjnie autorytarne implikacje pomysłów politycznych i pedagogicznych Rousseau.

En el presente artículo, abordaremos el problema metafísico de la libertad y la espontaneidad de la conciencia moral en la filosofía de Rousseau; tales cuestiones serán examinadas teniendo como referente el Contrato social, y su ensayo el Emilio. Proponemos una relectura de Rousseau considerando la reflexión sobre la relación que hay entre la libertad y la espontaneidad de la conciencia moral vinculada al concepto de ley moral. La libertad se configura con el contexto de la metafísica de la raison moderna, y constituye un imperativo para la conciencia moral en el discurso rousseauniano, que ha trascendido hasta la época contemporánea. Adoptaremos el análisis histórico crítico.

This is a translation of selections from Part One, Chapter One of Rehberg's Investigations, which contains his critique of the philosophical principles animating the French Revolution. No English translation of the text currently exists. The Investigations was one of the most influential philosophical treatments of the Revolution in eighteenth-century Germany and remains an important specimen of ‘Kantian’ political theory from the 1790s. The Investigations had a clear impact on Kant's political philosophy and the work of the early Fichte. The translation is accompanied by an editorial introduction that introduces the reader to Rehberg and outlines his core arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rousseau's account of the "legislator" or "lawgiver" is commonly regarded as one of the most far-fetched, ominous, and baffling parts of his teaching in the Social Contract. In brief, Rousseau's lawgiver seems to be a proto-totalitarian figure whose self-appointed mission is to found a political community by "denaturing" people at a single stroke and who may be a mere figment of Rousseau's overheated imagination. Accordingly, this part of the Social Contract threatens to make a mockery of Rousseau's claim to be "taking men as they are and laws they can be," as well as his claim that the combination of " freedom and equality " is "the greatest good" in the civil state. Following and extending Rousseau's own method of teaching by examples, however, this essay argues that Benjamin Franklin's influence over the American republic—especially through his posthumous Autobiography —offers a prosaic example of the apparently fantastical phenomenon sketched by Rousseau. In fact, I argue that Franklin's case corresponds more fully to Rousseau's description than do any of Rousseau's own examples (such as Moses, Lycurgus, and Numa) and that Franklin showed in practice what Rousseau suggested in theory: that a lawgiver can succeed without relying on coercion and without undercutting the equality that underlies a just society. Franklin's denaturing influence, I suggest, has been crucial for the durability of republicanism in the United States, given the country's size and diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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AbstractThis paper argues that Rousseau’s lawgiver is best thought of as a fictional teacher of peoples. It is fictional as it reflects an idea that is entertained despite its contradictory nature, and it is contradictory in the sense that it describes ‘an undertaking beyond human strength and, to execute it, an authority that amounts to nothing’ (II.7; 192). Rousseau conceives of the social contract as a necessary device for enabling the transferal of individual power to the body politic, for subsuming individual wills under the general will, and for aligning the good of the individual with the common good. For the social contract to be valid, however, it needs to be preceded by a desire to belong to a moral community that can induce people to join willingly, and that will grant legitimacy to the laws established. If the social contract is the machinery that makes the body politic function, the lawgiver is ‘the mechanic who invents the machine’ (II.7; 191). In this paper we will look closer at the pedagogical functions of Rousseau’s mythical lawgiver by first examining the relationship between the social contract, the general will and the lawgiver. Then, we aim to flesh out a pedagogical understanding of the figure of the lawgiver by way of the two educational dimensions of accommodation and transformation. Finally, we will argue for the importance of understanding Rousseau’s lawgiver as a fictional device allowing for the fundamental and enduring educational task of balancing between the preservation and renewal of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article compares Rousseau’s understanding of gentle means to obtain consent with the modern concept of soft power. Examining the phrase ‘to persuade without convincing’, it explores the nature and purpose of the power Rousseau attaches to his Great Legislator whose enigmatic qualities have been correlated with both democratic and authoritarian tendencies. It explores the power of character, religion, and women—to which Rousseau refers in various contexts in his writings—suggests resemblance with the authority Rousseau assigns to the Legislator, and deems its application as Rousseau’s brand of soft power. Yet while there are surface-level parallels, Rousseau’s thought departs significantly from the prevailing connotations of this concept, particularly in terms of its undisclosed goals. Joseph Nye, who adopted the term soft power and identified the conception, recommends soft power as an outward-directed means that utilises culture, values, and ideology to secure dominance under the notion of influence. For Rousseau, it is a defensive, inward-directed instrument that aims to enable the Legislator to carry out his task of fostering and enhancing a people’s authenticity and autonomy without resorting to force.

In this paper, I consider what it might mean to approach boredom as a problem of post-history, rather than of modernity as such. Post-history, or 'end of history', in this sense, is linked with the impossibility or unlikelihood of political-systemic change, and thus with the disappearance of the contingency or temporal flux that had been understood as the context or prerequisite of political action and political freedom. I will, argue, firstly, that both Rousseau and Fukuyama depict societies that are 'post-historical', in this sense, and which are marked by 'boredom' of this specifically post-historical kind. Secondly, I will argue that both thinkers link post-historical boredom with the disappearance or diminution of the 'drive for recognition' that both understood as both an agent and effect of 'history'. Thirdly, I will argue that while Fukuyama understands post-historical boredom as an 'irritant' that threatens to restart history without quite succeeding in doing so, Rousseau understands it as an essentially stabilising (and happy) condition that maintains post-historical man in an equilibrium modelled on the order of nature itself. And fourthly, I consider certain ways in which this 'post-historical' boredom might coexist and overlap with the 'promise of intensity' experienced in post-Fordist neoliberal society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars from very different interpretive traditions agree that Rousseau's conception of human nature and the self constitutes a pivotal point in the history of philosophy. I focus on one important aspect of his investigation into human nature and the self: the development of identity. I reconstruct his understanding of the development of identity as articulated in the Discourse on Inequality and Emile, focusing on the psychological interplay of identity and identification involved in the formation of the self. Finally, I turn to a discussion of how his theory of the development of identity informs his specifically political theory, and especially the extralegal institutions and practices he suggests for forming a strong political identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rousseau coined the term perfectibilité to name what he claimed was the faculty that distinguished human beings from other animals. Although Rousseau himself largely associated perfectibility with the tendency of the human race to become corrupt, later thinkers adopted his term but then transformed it into a concept denoting the human capacity for progress. This article has two goals. The first goal is to analyse Rousseau's discussion of perfectibilité in order to identify a specifically Rousseauean of perfectibilité. I identify three related features of Rousseau's perfectibilité: the ambiguous status of both instinct and freedom, the unique malleability of human nature, and the fact that perfectibilité operates on both the levels of the individual and the species. The second goal is to examine the transformation of this specifically Rousseauean conception in the thought of one of the thinker largely responsible for giving it a very different direction, Condorcet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"What is not prohibited is allowed" is the principle at the heart of international law. Yet the principle is empty. It originates in the Lotus judgment of the Permanent Court of International Justice of 1927 where Turkey was allowed to prosecute a French citizen at the expense of the authority of France to have exclusive jurisdiction. This article recounts the history of "what is not prohibited is allowed" and explains where it has led us astray and where it is in the process of doing so. It recalls that the intention of the creators of the Permanent Court of International Justice was very different, namely that equitable balancing would take place when no specific international law norm could be identified. The article suggests how, through an Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice, equitable balancing can be re‐established as the fallback principle when international law is otherwise silent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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"What good is anthropology?" Rather than accepting a predetermined notion of the good, I ask, What ancestral spirits animate anthropology as a vocation? In pursuing this question, I turn to the inaugural issue of American Ethnologist, which, I suggest, expresses an anthropological spirit readable via Lévi‐Strauss and Rousseau. I examine how this spirit was expressed in other parts of the world, such as the first generation of postcolonial anthropologists in India, as they confronted the question whether India may be seen as a settler colony. How was such a spirit born? As one possible beginning, I offer a creation myth for the birth of anthropological sensibility, located in a key moment of the Ramayana, when its tribal/lower‐caste poet‐author, Valmiki, begins to enunciate differently, after witnessing an act of human, settler violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of human-animal relations in the emergence of amour-propre, as presented in Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Men (also known as the Second Discourse). Rousseau’s natural vegetarianism thesis is used to elucidate and interrogate fundamental pivots in his conjectural history of human development. The implications of the connection between amour-propre and human-animal relations are explored in relation to anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism, and the disavowal of nonhuman suffering in Western culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Jean-Jacques Rousseau can be seen as a public theologian by analyzing two well-known treatises. It draws on the Latin root of the concept of the 'public', in order to underscore the anthropology and sociology of public life. The article argues that Rousseau is a public theologian as his public policy of social organization, presupposes anthropological and sociological views of humanity that parallel views found in Christian theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A introdução da propriedade privada é um ponto de inflexão na história hipotética traçada por Rousseau. As relações sociais, já iniciadas, são completamente reconfiguradas por esse advento. Mais especificamente, é apenas devido à marcada desigualdade econômica que segue a partição das terras entre proprietários e supranumerários que uma conflitualidade exacerbada se instaura entre os homens, tornando imperativo a celebração de um contrato que estabilize o convívio social pela via da ereção de um poder político soberano. Dada a centralidade do problema, Rousseau não poderia deixar de investigar a questão da propriedade também sob um prisma moral-normativo. Para o genebrino, seria possível admitir uma regulação pré-política das relações de propriedade? Haveria critérios de legitimação da propriedade privada anteriores ao estado civil e ao direito positivo? A posse factual poderia ser reivindicada como direito já no estado de natureza? O presente artigo busca responder tais perguntas por meio de um diálogo entre Rousseau e o principal representante da tradição jusnaturalista no que que concerne a essas questões – John Locke.

Tekst zawiera uwagi polemiczne do książki Pawła Pieniążka pt. Jednostka, zło, historia w myśli Rousseau (Łódź 2022). Podjęta zostaje próba dyskusji z Autorem nad interpretacją głównych dzieł Rousseau, ich najważniejszymi pojęciami i problemami teoretycznymi. Mowa jest zwłaszcza o Umowie społecznej, Emilu, Marzeniach samotnego wędrowca, Nowej Heloizie, lecz pojawiają się też istotne odniesienia do tzw. pierwszej i drugiej Rozprawy, Dialogów i Listów do Malesherbesa. Tam, gdzie Pieniążek widzi tylko dowody „porażki” ideałów emancypacyjnych Rousseau i „klęskę” jego dzieła, tam autor polemiki stara się pokazać, że istnieją alternatywne sposoby czytania tekstów Rousseau, pozwalające ochronić go przed tradycyjnym zarzutem, że nie zdołał on uzgodnić wspólnotowego i indywidualistycznego planu swojej myśli i pozostał rozdarty między dwoma sprzecznymi i wykluczającymi się wzajemnie ideałami: obywatela i samotnika.

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Copyright of Kant-Studien is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Eighteenth-century French fiction containing episodes on abortion are influenced by the seventeenth-century scandal of La Voisin, and by the 1731 legal suit involving the Jesuit Priest Père Girard and Catherine Cadière. Two observations may be derived from eighteenth-century French novels: women's abortions are monitored, instigated, and decided by fathers, husbands and lovers, who select for them, if they are to remain celibate, and whose children they bear. And as well, abortion tests or reveals the limits of a woman's individual freedom and right to care for herself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judges occupy important roles in Rousseau's constitutional theory. Placing the Social Contract alongside Rousseau's lesser-known Letters Written from the Mountain and The Government of Poland , this article examines how Rousseau constructs judicial institutions and explores a problem he confronts. Although necessary for the republic to enjoy the rule of law, Rousseau worries that adjudicative bodies threaten the citizens' freedom. This article describes Rousseau's constitutional solution, which combines a conservative-yet-progressive legislative ethos, with pluralist institutionalism and judicial non-professionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Rousseau's influence throughout the American founding has been a subject of disagreement for almost three centuries. In this article we claim that this disagreement reveals some enduring misunderstandings of the concept of 'the people'. Almost a century before Rousseau was born, the American Puritans actually created a people that came to resemble Rousseau's theoretical distinction between the Will of All and the General Will (the people's two bodies), that is, between the people understood as a collection of individuals ruled by the will of the majority, and the people understood as an organic whole ruled by reason for the common good. We show that though coming from different perspectives, the Puritans and Rousseau arrived at surprisingly similar conclusions regarding the need to balance the people's two bodies. Theoretically, one can understand both the ambivalent attitude of the Americans toward Rousseau, and the disputes between the partisans of a republican, conservative American founding, and those who advocated a liberal and revolutionary founding, as well as the repeated attempts to propose some kind of synthesis of the two approaches. Yet practically attempting to strike the proper balance between the people's two bodies was and remains an endeavor that comes with both great opportunities and great dangers for any people, for, whenever this balance is disrupted, the results can be catastrophic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Scholars of Rousseau's Social Contract have focused primarily on the text's abstract principles of political right. This theoretical focus has come at the cost of serious consideration of practical aspects of Rousseau's thought, such as his views on bringing the political association into being and what Rousseau calls maxims of politics. One of his extended discussions about political practice occurs in Book IV of The Social Contract , yet this portion of the text largely has been ignored. My central claim is that Book IV merits serious attention since it changes Rousseau's project from one that uses political right merely to condemn institutions to a theory that uses right to identify latent possibilities for changing institutions. Further, this practical theory comes to light most clearly when one understands that he is in conversation with Montesquieu in Book IV on the topic of the Roman Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the various statements related to the political philosophy of the Laozi《老子》, Chapter 80 is distinguished by its particular depiction of what may be dubbed an ideal state. By examining the viewpoints of various authors in both English and Chinese works, the chapter will be analyzed and compared with three concepts independently discussed in political philosophy: (1) the call for returning to the past, also referred to as nostalgia; (2) utopianism; and (3) the state of nature. It is probably more than evident that the ideal state is at least reminiscent of these theories. Despite the possible and hypothetical similarities, however, this article will attempt to show that it is acceptable to claim that there is neither sufficient evidence nor support for the argument that the Laozi advocates returning to the past, proposes utopia, or describes a state of nature, and, moreover, that some of its statements are not completely adequate for such interpretations. The thesis that this article will support is that the ideal state is only a metaphorical description of a better world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Academic Journal of Philosophy / Felsefi Düşün is the property of Pinhan Yayincilik and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study aims to introduce some philosophical commentaries and suggestions concerning early years theater (or early years art in general). Early childhood is a significant and distinct time in life that must be valued and supported in its own right. The concept of children's participation in artistic practices still seems, however, not to be fully recognised and accepted. Leading fields of research struggle with the most basic definitions, e.g. the meanings of the term "childism" appear to contradict in different papers. Furthermore, the idea of children's agency seems to transform these inaccuracies only partially and needs further development in order to avoid persistent misconceptions about childhood and early years art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctrine of the three orders which distinguishes and hierarchizes flesh, spirit and charity is obviously one of the major themes of Pascal's thought. But it appears that Pascal meditates as much on the disorder -- and dis-order -- induced by sin and the corruption of our nature as on the hierarchy and the heterogeneity of these three kinds of reality. In the world he describes, in fact, not only is everything overturned -- the lowest order, that of the flesh, now dominating the other two -- but also everything is confused -- pleasure, for example, obtaining the credence that normally belongs to science, and the flesh invading the order of the spirit through custom and imagination. To maintain then, as several commentators do, that no interference between the orders is possible, so that tyranny can only exist in the state of desire, is in our view to adopt a more Stoic than Pascalian point of view. For to deny disorder is also, according to Pascal, to deny sin by projecting into the second nature the memory of the first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

O neotecnicismo empreendedor, compreendido como acesso e manejo às tecnologias de informação e comunicação em seu aspecto primário da socialização, somado a uma leitura pragmática das atividades sociais, influenciam os novos contextos educacionais. Nesta conjuntura, a autoridade docente entrou em declínio, uma vez que deste é retirado do papel central no processo educacional, sendo substituído, cada vez mais, por dispositivos tecnológicos. Também a sua autoridade como detentora dos saberes sobre os objetos dos currículos educacionais declina, na medida em que todos têm acesso à informação na palma da mão, por meio de smartphones, por exemplo. Ao analisar essa temática, no presente trabalho buscou-se responder à seguinte questão: entre o passado e o futuro, quais desafios se colocam para o exercício do ofício do educador no presente? Para responder a esse questionamento, realizou-se uma pesquisa bibliográfica, tendo como os principais referenciais teóricos Jean Jacques Rousseau (1995) e Hannah Arendt (2007). A partir do entendimento do papel do docente, segundo as perspectivas filosóficas de Rousseau e de Arendt, atenta-se sobre os desafios enfrentados pelos educadores na sociedade contemporânea para exercer sua função social. Estas perspectivas filosóficas permitiram atribuir valor ao papel do educador nos novos contextos, reafirmando a figura do educador governante como autoridade social e pedagógica, responsáveis pela formação humana para a vida comum e para a sociedade democrática.

Undoubtedly, Rousseau's ideas in the field of application and practice can be given a prominent role in education. As in France itself, they recognized him late and understood his thoughts, and 16 years after Rousseau's death, his body was transferred to the Pantheon (the mausoleum of great men of that country) by the decision of the French Revolutionary Assembly and was buried here, perhaps for a period of time. It takes a lot to put his ideas into practice. But what is clear is that in the matter of teaching and learning, this theory can be greatly benefited in the following dimensions: 1- Learner: Rousseau's emphasis on knowing the student is comprehensive and he believes that one should have the necessary and sufficient information about the student before any effective action. Modern psychological theories also emphasize the importance of knowing the student in the medical education group or other similar groups, the first step for teaching and learning should be the foundation of knowing the students. The teacher must know the learner in terms of cognitive processes, previous experiences, intelligence and talent, background, motivation, emotional maturity, etc. because all these things will be effective in his teaching and communication methods, and without the knowledge of these processes, he will build an intellectual scaffolding. And the pre-organizers cannot have high hopes for the results of their work. The teacher should know the needs of the learner and guide the curriculum in that direction, and the most important thing is to take into account the individual differences of the learners. It is also important to pay attention to the cognitive development stages of learners and what should be provided to Anna at each stage. 2- Instructor: The role of the instructor should be a facilitator and guide. The teacher should be a complete practical model for the learners. Even in theories of social-cognitive psychology such as Bandura, the role of the model and the fact that the giver must perform well in his position are mentioned. The teacher should motivate the students and according to Rousseau, the art of a teacher is to make his student enjoy the lesson. If a school is chosen for teaching a subject, it must have the necessary expertise in that subject and discipline and start it with sufficient motivation. The teacher should be able to establish a good relationship with the learner or learners and play the role of a friend and helper, and the learner should be able to learn by his side. 3- Environment: The environment is something that Rousseau is very sensitive about and he is forced to grow and cultivate his desire even in solitude. Rousseau does not accept an educational environment that imposes negative training on the individual or is not stimulating enough. Today, new theories of psychology have confirmed the correctness of Rousseau's theory. In the matter of teaching and learning, creating suitable, creative, and stimulating environments, suitable emotional atmosphere, suitable physical environment, sufficient facilities, and tools, etc., have a great impact on the amount and desirability of students' learning and it is necessary to create a dynamic environment. 4- Curriculum: the content presented to the learners should be consistent with their natural needs. Using learning with the help of the senses and applying the experimental method in teaching and learning was one of Rousseau's philosophical principles, which later became the basis of Dewey's theory of pragmatism. Curriculums should be comprehensive and should allow learners as much freedom in learning as possible. Also, curricula should be flexible and far from monotony and dryness. Emphasizing new teaching methods is one of the principles of this philosophical theory and teachers should not insist on traditional teaching. Curricula should be problem-oriented and make the learner think and reflect. Provide him with an objective and first-hand experiences. It is very important to include moral content in lessons and one should not ignore its hidden effects. Learning how to think should be included in the curriculum. Giving learners independence and freedom of action to touch and experience what they like to learn should be done with teacher facilitation.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was an ardent believer in individual freedom and self-development; consequently, she frequently discussed the possibilities of women’s education and self-reliance in her writings. Being rather reckless in her life, she was often on the move, not only searching for better life conditions but also following her own impulses in her critical reading. The motif of intellectual mobility features her educational writings, argumentative works, novels, and her last publication, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796) as well. In my paper, I will map the multiplicity of the concept of mobility and elaborate on the senses of escapism in Wollstonecraft’s travel-letters, moving beyond Laurence Sterne’s notion of “a sentimental journey” (A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, 1768). Moreover, in Letters, in her solitary walks and fanciful reveries, not only Wollstonecraft’s inclination to the (natural and textual) sublime but also Rousseau’s ideas on exercise and movement will be detected (cf. Reveries of the Solitary Walker, 1782). On the one hand, my interpretation is contextualised by the late-eighteenth-century view on women’s limitations of “sensibility”, displaying the constraints the age demanded; on the other hand, I intend to place the travelogue in Mary Wollstonecraft’s oeuvre and highlight the synthesising quality of the writing as a piece of “travail” and/or “a labour of love”.