| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 2002: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Our research has shown, through the lexical study of the noun "public", that a critical conception of the "public" in the modern meaning -as a whole of customers -existed already from the second half of the eighteenth century. We can say that Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the inventor of this conception. At the beginning, "public" as a noun meant "republic". But during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the civil society came to maturity, a very important semantic transformation occurred to this word; "public" received the modern meaning of "audience". From that moment on, the "public" has been considered as a whole of private persons using their reason in a critical way (Habermas). Voltaire marvellously represents this conception. As for Rousseau, he had an opposite conception to Voltaire's, an amazingly prophetic one.
We tried to examine Rousseau's critical position through two autobiographical works: Confessions and Dialogues, Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques. I should add that I have achieved an electronic edition of Dialogues, Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques.
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