The essays gathered in this volume give an expressive idea of the multiplicity of aspects of the personality, work and thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an unavoidable and controversial figure in the intellectual history of 18th century Europe, who shook in form and substance many of the acquired certainties of his time and formulated with great acuteness the paradoxes that surround the destiny of human societies and cultures, tearing up horizons and opening up perspectives that have inspired successive generations from the French Revolution to the present day.