Transcript Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712—1778)

Eighteenth Century Philosopher
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1772
 Most of Rousseau’s works were seen as very
controversial, some were banned in parts of Europe,
and he even fled to Switzerland later in life
 Rousseau spent the end of his life paranoid, trying to
validate his life and his works which had been the
reason for his exile
 This was an essay written by Rousseau in response to a
prompt given by the Academy of Dijon, and is what
originally made Rousseau famous
 The general idea Rousseau states in this essay is that the
arts and sciences corrupt human morality
 This work proved to be very controversial as it seemed, to
some, to inhibit progress through its negative view on the
arts and sciences
 This topic of nature vs. society is what Rousseau would
dedicate the rest of his intellectual life to
 This was again a response to an essay prompt posed by the
Academy of Dijon
 Rousseau felt that this work was superior to his previous
because it was both longer and more philosophically
“daring”; critics condemned it for the same reasons
 The work discusses natural vs. ethical inequalities, and
argues that civilization is the root cause of moral
inequalities
 This work was a novel, written while Rousseau was living in
lodgings near Montmorency
 The most common of interpretations of this is that there
are two moral convictions in the world:
- One’s own “secret” convictions
- And convictions imposed upon an individual by
society
 Rousseau was in the novel saying that one should act
according to one’s own moral convictions rather than
acting in an “unauthentic” way, and that this “unauthentic”
way of life leads to destruction
 Rousseau’s work Émile was revered as the most
influential piece on education to come out of the
eighteenth century
 Rousseau’s autobiography The Confessions was
regarded to be as influential of the autobiography of
St. Augustine
 The Reveries helped to define romantic naturalism as it
developed during the Enlightenment
 Rousseau was seen most often as an anti-
enlightenment thinker (though his works on
education are exceptions), as in most of his books he
condemned the arts and sciences, and society as a
whole as being fundamentally flawed.
 He claimed that the only way to achieve a truly “moral”
existence was to remove the established society
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_on_the_Arts_
and_Sciences
 http://www.nndb.com/people/808/000082562/
 http://www.enotes.com/topics/jean-jacques-rousseau
 http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rous.htm