Interdisciplinary research is always an offshoot of previously established research area boundaries. Frequently these bridges are built (or at least proposed) thanks to the intervention of notorious figures known for their comprehensive erudition on the different fields of research involved.

This is the case of the French-speaking polymath of Swiss origin, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). His pedagogical works established the essential character of the natural evolution of the learner in the learning process, thus promoting thoughts of a philosophical nature in education, a contribution comparable to the contribution of Copernicus’ work in the scientific conception of the world. His best-known work The social contract, which became one of the most important works of the cultural and intellectual movement of the Enlightenment and for many one of the pillars of the French Revolution, proclaimed the equality of men within an established State through a social contract. Unlike Hobbes’ gloomy vision, Rousseau believed that human beings are born free and are good by nature.

He made important contributions in music and botany, as well as being a virtuoso writer.

This issue of the journal INTER DISCIPLINA promotes an approach to the work of this outstanding intellectual through studies of different facets of his work. Includes an interview with Dr. Luis Antonio Velasco Guzmán, a leading specialist in the work of this thinker. It also includes a review of the work of Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe entitled Poetics of history. Rousseau and the theater of original mimesis, which places the figure of Rousseau at the origins of modern speculative philosophy.

This issue inccorporates eight papers in the Independent Communications section.