"Cooper's reading is Platonic without being Platonist, i.e., he reads Rousseau in dialogue with Plato as understood by Straussian interpreters, such that political philosophy, not metaphysics, forms the core of Platonic thought."

Choice

"One of Rousseau’s best interpreters, Laurence Cooper has an established record of close engagement, careful analysis, and deep insight in his detailed studies of Rousseau. In Dreaming of Justice, Waking to Wisdom, he trains his attention on one book, Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Unsurprisingly, the result is a thorough and original study of the text, replete with insights that will surely be of interest to Rousseau scholars and to anyone interested in what Cooper calls in his subtitle and throughout the book the 'philosophic life.'"

Perspectives on Politics

"Written with a combination of true insight, grace, and humility, this book is the first of which I’m aware that undertakes to read Rousseau’s Reveries—his most beautiful but mysterious work—as a single, consistent but unfolding story: the tale of Rousseau’s journey into and then within the philosophic life."

Arthur M. Melzer, author of The Natural Goodness of Man

“In his new book, Dreaming of Justice, Waking to Wisdom, Cooper, gives us a fascinating account of what it means to live philosophically, through an analysis of Rousseau's Promenades of a Solitary Walker.  While Rousseau's life may be peculiar in many ways Cooper brilliantly uses Rousseau’s account of that life to open up for us what the experience of philosophizing can be like.  Highly recommended!”

Michael Allen Gillespie, Duke University