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Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-78

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-78. I A Different Life II Contract Social III Critical Evaluation. Before he published his first piece, he had been . A footman in Turin The steward and lover of a Swiss baroness in Chambery The interpreter to a Levantine mountebank An itinerant musician

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-78

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  1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-78 I A Different Life II Contract Social III Critical Evaluation

  2. Before he published his first piece, he had been • A footman in Turin • The steward and lover of a Swiss baroness in Chambery • The interpreter to a Levantine mountebank • An itinerant musician • A private tutor in the family of Condillac and Mably in Lyons • Secretary to the French Ambassador in Venice • A research assistant for the Dupins at Chenonceaux

  3. He lived a different life 1 Voice of the Middle Class • A Self-Taught Dilettante • A Music Critic - La Serva Padrona 1753 4 A Social Philosopher - Discourses 1750-55 - Contrat Social 1762 - Emile 1762 5 Has to flee Paris

  4. He wanted a different life Emotional Polemics Against Scientific Reason - Philosophes: empirical science - Physiocrates: back to nature; critique of science and mercantilism

  5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-78 I A Different Life II Contrat Social III Critical Evaluation

  6. Declaration des droits… “law is the expression of the general will” (la loi est l’expression de la volonté générale) “all citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and all public positions” (tous les citoyens, étant égaux a ces yeux, sont également admissibles a toutes dignités, places et emplois publics)

  7. Contrat Social 1762 • The big “if” (I) • Born free – everywhere in chains (I.1) • Social order = covenant (I.1) • Social contract: collective force of all; total alienation (I.6) • The sovereign: forced to be free (I.7) • Civil society: from instinct to justice as a rule (I.8) • Sovereignty inalienable (II.1) • General will and will of all (II. 3) • The extraordinary legislator: Rousseau himself? ) (II. 6-7) • Majority rule is not democracy (III. 4) • Representatives are agents (III.15) • Democracy is harmony and unanimity (IV. 2) • Civil religion = tolerance (IV. 8)

  8. Emile “woman is especially constituted to please man” (la femme est faite spécialement pour plaire a l’homme) women should be “directed to the study of men and to that pleasure-giving knowledge’ (doivent tendre a l’étude des hommes ou aux connaissances agréables)

  9. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-78 I A Different Life II Contract Social III Critical Evaluation

  10. Critical Evaluation • Will against reason: revolutionary self-determination • Universal human dignity (for men) • General will as common good

  11. Critical Evaluation • Reason as unnatural complexity (economics) • Rebellion against “systemic constraints”

  12. Critical Evaluation • Illusion of homogneity (populism)

  13. Critical Evaluation • Natural man – and woman?

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