David Lay Williams

David Lay Williams wrote his first book, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, while on fellowship at IRH from 2003-2004, which was subsequently published by the Pennsylvania State University Press (2007).  He argued that Rousseau’s ancient debts had been overshadowed in recent interpretation by emphasis on supposed affinities with Thomas Hobbes.  Drawing from T.K. Seung’s work on Plato’s metaphysics as well as Rousseau’s own marked copies of Plato’s complete dialogues, Williams showed that Rousseau was far more Platonic in orientation than was broadly assumed.  In doing so, he located Rousseau in a rich tradition of early modern Platonism, while revealing the centrality of Platonic ideas in his constructive political thought, especially the general will. 

Since his fellowship, Williams moved on to DePaul University in Chicago and has published Rousseau’s ‘Social Contract’: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2014) and The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx (Princeton, 2024), in addition to co-editing several books including, The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau’s ‘Social Contract’ (Cambridge, 2024).