Rousseau (an Overview)

8/6/2019 Rousseau (an Overview)

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Life and Works1754-1778


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Major Works 1754-1778

Discourse on the Origins of Inequality

(1754) Emile (1762)

On the Social Contract(1762)

The Confessions (posthumous)


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Discourse on the Origins of

Inequality (1754)

Written in response to anotherprize competition

posted by the Academy of Dijon

Rousseaus description of writing it:

... wandering deep into the forest, I sought and I

found the vision of thoseprimitive times, the

history of which I proudly traced. I demolishedthepetty lies of mankind; I dared to strip mans

nature naked .... The outcome of these researches

was the Essay upon Inequality(Confs., Bk 8).


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Significance ofDOI

All that is challenging in The Social Contract

hadpreviously appeared in the Essay on

Inequality(Confs. Bk 9).

The great anthropologist Claude Lvi-Strauss has

called Rousseau the founder of anthropology;

The conclusion anticipates Marx: ... a handful ofpeople ... abound in superfluities while the

starving multitude lacks in necessities(CUP ed.,

188).


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Scientific Context ofDOI

Mid-eighteenth century: evolutionary theory andrelated issues were being explored by La Mettrie,

Linnaeus and Buffon (see ppt 22/01/03). They speculated on the relation of humans to

otherprimates;

Buffon extended the age of the earth by 70,000

years; Rousseau calls Buffon one of those authorities

that are respectable to Philosophers(CUP ed.,189).


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Philosophical Context

Theories of the state of nature articulated by

Hobbes and Locke served to support their

respectivepolitical visions:

Hobbes theorized a state he called Leviathan

with absolutepower over its citizens as a

preventive measure against civil war; Lockes state was to serve the preservation of

life, liberty andproperty.


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Rousseau vs Locke and Hobbes

Using the writings of Buffon, La Mettrie and

others, Rousseau rejected the visions of both:

He rejected Hobbess view that the state of nature

was a state of war that forced people to accept an

authoritarian state;

He rejected Lockes belief thatproperty,unevenly distributed (SecondTreatise, 50)

should be the foundation of the state, since a

relative equality is necessary to democracy.


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DOI: Rousseaus Political

Philosophy Rousseau instead proposed:

That humans are naturallypeaceable, not fierce;

That they originally led isolated lives in the forest;

They came together only out of necessity;

Language emerges with great difficulty; society,

dependent on language, therefore emerges with difficulty

(a great contrast with Hobbes and Locke);

The institution ofproperty is the first act of civilization,

destroys the state of nature, and lays the basis of the

unjust relations of civil society.


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Questions on the DOI:

1. What kind of being is the savage?

2. What forces bring men into early society? What

role does language play?

3. What role does property play in the developmentof society?

4. What is the difference between naturalandsocial

inequality?

5. Why is vanity (amour-propre) so important?

6. What is wrong with civil society?


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Geneva and ancient republics

He praises these cities in the dedication of the

DOI, thus revealing his political ideals: A state of great antiquity;

Small in size;

Citizens follow what the magistratespropose;

Non-aggressive, but acts in own defense.


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Rousseaus Ideal Cities:

Paris versus Geneva Corrupt

Unnatural

Weak Citizens dominated by

opinions of others

Complex and large:officials, taxes, rules

Display of wealth

Lack of genuine relationsamongpeople

Virtuous:people have

time for the unfortunate,

the Fatherland and theirfriends (DSA, p. 16)

No theatre

Defense of homeland

Simplicity Small

Non-aggressive


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Emile, a treatise on education

(1762) Platonic tradition:philosophy of education as

preparation of citizens for civic life;

Lockean Sensationalism: the child learns firstabout objective relations, natural laws and theskills of the craftsman (also Bacon and Diderot);

Later the child studies theoretical matters such as

the social contract; Rousseau is responding to teaching young

children dead languages such as Greek and Latin,and abstract ideas that they cannot apply.


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On the Social Contract(1762) Exposition of the principle that men should

determine their own fate in conformity with the

common good, which Rousseau terms thegeneral will;

A controversial work that was condemned inParis andpublicly burned as seditious because it

implicitly rejected the principle of the Kingsrule by divine right;

Controversial today for what some commentatorsbelieve is the authoritarianism of the principle of

the general will.


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The Confessions Rousseaus first autobiographical work, in which he revealed his relations

with many famouspeople such as Diderot;

The opening lines set the stage: I have resolved on an enterprise which has

noprecedent and which , once complete, will have no imitator. Mypurposeis to display to my kind a portrait in every way true to nature, and the man I

shallportray will be myself.

Whether nature did well or ill in breaking the mould in which she formed

me, is a question which can only be resolved after the reading of my book.

He read it aloud toprivate gatherings, and it was published after his death

(posthumously);

It is a major source for his view of his works and how they were received,

although many scholars have raised questions about various details.


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Rousseaus Life, 1762-1778 Rousseau fled France in 1762 due the

condemnation ofEmile and the Social Contract;

He took refuge in Switzerland, where he startedlearning botany, as a nourishment for the soul;

He cultivated a European-wide network ofscientific correspondence and worked on

dictionaries of music and botany that sought toimprove those sciences through clarification ofterminology;

In 1767 he returned to France, where he died on 2

July1778.


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Rousseau Botanizing

Rousseau (an Overview)

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