ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to analyze, compare, and evaluate several of the ways in which Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith address what one might broadly call the "question of the self". Both Rousseau and Smith discuss what we are by nature, who we have become, whether we can know ourselves or each other, how best to articulate the human condition, what it would mean to be free, and whether there is anything that can be done to remedy our deeply imperfect, if not degraded, condition. Problems of illusion, deception, self-deception, and "self-falsification" go hand in hand with the questions mentioned in the book. The book focuses on narcissism and self-knowledge; narrative and self-knowledge; sociability, narrative, and interpersonal knowledge; self-falsification, agency, and social exchange; and, finally, liberty, civil religion, and sociability. It offers considerable back and forth between Rousseauian and Smithean views.
