Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750)
Prize essay for the Academy of Dijon arguing that the progress of the arts and sciences has corrupted morals
Philosophy
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1712–1778 · Genevan (French-speaking)
Enlightenment; social contract theory; precursor of Romanticism
Genevan-born philosopher, novelist and composer whose writings on inequality, the social contract and education made him one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the Enlightenment. He argued that civilisation had corrupted naturally good human beings and that legitimate government must express the general will, ideas that inspired the French Revolution and Romanticism.
How to spot them
- ▸"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains"
- ▸The general will (volonté générale); "forced to be free"
- ▸Amour de soi and amour-propre; natural goodness corrupted by society
- ▸Citizen of Geneva; Emile; the Confessions; Thérèse Levasseur
Key works
Discourse on Inequality (Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes) (1755)
Conjectural history of how private property and society produced inequality
Julie, or the New Heloise (Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse) (1761)
Epistolary novel of love and virtue, one of the century's great bestsellers
The Social Contract (Du contrat social) (1762)
Theory of legitimate political authority based on popular sovereignty and the general will
Emile, or On Education (Émile, ou De l'éducation) (1762)
Treatise-novel on natural education; includes the "Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar"
Confessions (Les Confessions) (written 1765–70 (published 1782–89))
Pioneering candid autobiography
Key ideas
- Humans are naturally good; society, private property and comparison have corrupted them
- Amour de soi (natural self-love aimed at self-preservation) is distinguished from amour-propre (self-regard dependent on others' opinion)
- Legitimate authority arises from a social contract in which each person gives himself wholly to the community, which is sovereign
- The general will aims at the common good and is distinct from the "will of all", the mere sum of private interests
- Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be "forced to be free"
- Education should follow nature, letting a child learn from experience rather than from books and imposed authority
Quick-fire facts
- •Born in Geneva; he signed himself "Citizen of Geneva"
- •His opera Le Devin du village (1752) was performed before Louis XV
- •He wrote articles on music for Diderot's Encyclopédie and later a Dictionnaire de musique
- •Emile and The Social Contract were condemned and burned in Paris and Geneva in 1762, forcing him to flee
- •He placed the five children he had with Thérèse Levasseur in a foundling hospital
- •He quarrelled famously with Voltaire, Diderot and David Hume
- •"Noble savage" was not his phrase – it comes from Dryden – though it is often attached to his thought
- •He died at Ermenonville in 1778; in 1794 his remains were moved to the Panthéon
Drill it — 10 cards
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Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Jean Jacques Rousseau
- Anthony Kenny — A New History of Western Philosophy