Rousseau biography succinctement

Since, for Rousseau, humans, like other creatures, are part of the design of a benevolent creator, they are individually well-equipped with the means to satisfy their natural needs. In the Discourse on Inequality Rousseau imagines a multi-stage evolution of humanity from the most primitive condition to something like a modern complex society.

Rousseau denies that this is a reconstruction of history as it actually was, and Frederick Neuhouser has argued that the evolutionary story is merely a philosophical device designed to separate the natural and the artificial elements of our psychology for a contrasting view see Kelly The human race barely subsists in this condition, chance meetings between proto-humans are the occasions for copulation and reproduction, child-care is minimal and brief in duration.

If humans are naturally good at this stage of human evolution, their goodness is merely a negative and amounts to the absence of evil. In this story, human beings are distinguished from the other creatures with which they share the primeval world only by two characteristics: freedom, and perfectibility. Freedom, in this context, is simply the ability not to be governed solely by appetite; perfectibility is the capacity to learn and thereby to find new and better means to satisfy needs.

Together, these characteristics give humans the potential to achieve self-consciousness, rationality, and morality. Nevertheless, it will turn out that such characteristics are more likely to condemn them to a social world of deception, dissimulation, dependence, oppression, and domination. As human populations grow, simple but unstable forms of co-operation evolve around activities like hunting.

According to Rousseau, the most important transitional moment in human history occurs at a stage of society marked by small settled communities. At this point a change, or rather a split, takes place in the natural drive humans have to care for themselves: competition among humans to attract sexual partners leads them to consider their own attractiveness to others and how that attractiveness compares to that of potential rivals.

In Emilewhere Rousseau is concerned with the psychological development of an individual in a modern society, he also associates this new psychological feature with sexual competition and the moment, puberty, when the male adolescent starts to think of himself as a sexual being with rivals for the favours of girls and women. Amour propre make the need to be recognized by others as having value and to be treated with respect central to the felt interests of each human being.

The presentation of amour propre in the Discourse on Inequality —and especially in his note XV to that work—often suggests that Rousseau sees it as a wholly negative passion and the source of all evil. Interpretations of amour propre centered on the Discourse on Inequality which, historically, are the most common ones for example Charvetoften focus on the fact that the need for recognition always has a comparative aspect, so that individuals are not content merely that others acknowledge their value, but also seek to be esteemed as superior to them.

This aspect of our nature then creates conflict as people try to exact this recognition from others or react with anger and resentment when it is denied to them. More recent readings of both the Discourse on Inequalityand especially of Emilehave indicated that a more balanced rousseau biography succinctement is possible DentNeuhouserbut see McLendon for pushback.

This project of containing and harnessing amour propre finds expression in both The Social Contract and Emile. In some works, such as the Second DiscourseRousseau presents amour propre as a passion that is quite distinct from amour de soi. In others, including Emilehe presents it as a form that amour de soi takes in a social environment.

The latter is consistent with his view in Emile that all the passions are outgrowths or developments of amour de soi. Although amour propre has its origins in sexual competition and comparison within small societies, it does not achieve its full toxicity until it is combined with a growth in material interdependence among human beings.

In the Discourse on InequalityRousseau traces the growth of agriculture and metallurgy and the first establishment of private property, together with the emergence of inequality between those who own land and those who do not. In an unequal society, human beings who need both the social good of recognition and such material goods as food, warmth, etc.

Subordinates need superiors in order to have access to the means of life; superiors need subordinates to work for them and also to give them the recognition they crave. In such a structure there is a clear incentive for people to misrepresent their true beliefs and desires in order to attain their ends. Thus, even those who receive the apparent love and adulation of their inferiors cannot thereby find satisfaction for their amour propre.

Once people have achieved consciousness of themselves as social beings, morality also becomes possible and this relies on the further faculty of conscience. It is, to that extent, akin to a moral sentiment such as Humean sympathy. But as something that is merely instinctual it lacks, for Rousseau, a genuinely moral quality. Genuine morality, on the other hand, consists in the application of reason to human affairs and conduct.

This requires the mental faculty that is the source of genuinely moral motivation, namely conscience. Conscience impels us to the love of justice and morality in a quasi-aesthetic manner. However, in a world dominated by inflamed amour proprethe normal pattern is not for a morality of reason to supplement or supplant our natural proto-moral sympathies.

For recent discussion of Rousseau on conscience and reason, see Neidleman,ch. So, for example, theatre audiences derive enjoyment from the eliciting of their natural compassion by a tragic scene on the stage; then, convinced of their natural goodness, they are freed to act viciously outside the theater. Philosophy, too, can serve as a resource for self-deception.

However, many of his other works, both major and minor, contain passages that amplify or illuminate the political ideas in those works. This idea finds its most detailed treatment in The Social Contract. In The Social ContractRousseau sets out to answer what he takes to be the fundamental question of politics, the reconciliation of the freedom of the individual with the authority of the state.

This reconciliation is necessary because human society has evolved to a point where individuals can no longer supply their needs through their own unaided efforts, but rather must depend on the co-operation of others. The process whereby human needs expand and interdependence deepens is set out in the Discourse on Inequality. This establishment amounts to the reinforcement of unequal and exploitative social relations that are now backed by law and state power.

In an echo of Locke and an anticipation of Marx, Rousseau argues that this state would, in effect, be a class state, guided by the common interest of the rich and propertied and imposing unfreedom and subordination on the poor and weak. The propertyless consent to such an establishment because their immediate fear of a Hobbesian state of war leads them to fail to attend to the ways in which the new state will systematically disadvantage them.

The Social Contract aims to set out an alternative to this dystopia, one in which, claims Rousseau, each person will enjoy the protection of the common force whilst remaining as free as they were in the state of nature. The key to this reconciliation is the idea of the general will: that is, the collective will of the citizen body taken as a whole.

The general will is the source of law and is willed by each and every citizen. In obeying the law each citizen is thus subject to his or her own will, and consequently, according to Rousseau, remains free. To these can be added a general will as the will of individual citizens towards the common good Canon On such a reading, Rousseau may be committed to something like an a posteriori philosophical anarchism.

Such a view holds that it is possible, in principle, for a state to exercise legitimate authority over its citizens, but all actual states—and indeed all states that we are likely to see in the modern era—will fail to meet the conditions for legitimacy. Rousseau argues that in order for the general will to be truly general it must come from all and apply to all.

This thought has both substantive and formal aspects. Formally, Rousseau argues that the law must be general in application and universal in scope. The law cannot name particular individuals and it must apply to everyone within the state. Rousseau believes that this condition will lead citizens, though guided by a consideration of what is in their own private interest, to favor laws that both secure the common interest impartially and that are not burdensome and intrusive.

For this to be true, however, it has to be the case that the situation of citizens is substantially similar to one another. In a state where citizens enjoy a wide diversity of lifestyles and occupations, or where there is a great deal of cultural diversity, or where there is a high degree of economic inequality, it will not generally be the case that the impact of the laws will be the same for everyone.

In such cases it will often not be true that a citizen can occupy the standpoint of the general will merely by imagining the impact of general and universal laws on his or her own case. In The Social Contract Rousseau envisages three different types or levels of will as being in play. First, individuals all have private wills corresponding to their own selfish interests as natural individuals; second, each individual, insofar as he identifies with the collective as a whole and assumes the identity of citizen, wills the general will of that collective as his or her own, setting aside selfish interest in favor of a set of laws that allow all to coexist under conditions of equal freedom; third, and very problematically, a person can identify with the corporate will of a subset of the populace as a whole.

The general will is therefore both a property of the collective and a result of its deliberations, and a property of the individual insofar as the individual identifies as a member of the collective. Its central theme was that man had become corrupted by society and civilisation. Inhe published 'Discourse on the Origin of Inequality'. He claimed that original man, while solitary, was happy, good and free.

The vices dated from the formation of societies, which brought comparisons and, with that, pride. It argued that a state based on a genuine social contract would give men real freedom in exchange for their obedience to a self-imposed law. Rousseau described his civil society as united by a general will, furthering the common interest while occasionally clashing with personal interest.

Increasingly unhappy in Paris, Rousseau travelled to Montmorency. The risk of the education of the foundling hospital was much less". Ten years later, Rousseau made inquiries about the fate of his son, but unfortunately no record could be found. When Rousseau subsequently became celebrated as a theorist of education and child-rearing, his abandonment of his children was used by his critics, including Voltaire and Edmund Burkeas the basis for arguments ad hominem.

Rousseau's ideas were the result of an almost obsessive dialogue with writers of the past, filtered in many cases through conversations with Diderot. InRousseau was paying daily visits to Diderot, who had been thrown into the fortress of Vincennes under a lettre de cachet for opinions in his " Lettre sur les aveugles ", that hinted at materialisma belief in atomsand natural selection.

According to science historian Conway ZirkleRousseau saw the concept of natural selection "as an agent for improving the human species. He wrote that while walking to Vincennes about three miles from Parishe had a revelation that the arts and sciences were responsible for the moral degeneration of mankind, who were basically good by nature. Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences was awarded the first prize and gained him significant fame.

Rousseau continued his interest in music. The king was so pleased by the work that he offered Rousseau a lifelong pension. To the exasperation of his friends, Rousseau turned down the great honor, bringing him notoriety as "the man who had refused a king's pension". He also turned down several other advantageous offers, sometimes with a brusqueness bordering on truculence that gave offense and caused him problems.

The same year, the visit of a troupe of Italian musicians to Paris, and their performance of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi 's La serva padronaprompted the Querelle des Bouffonswhich pitted protagonists of French music against supporters of the Italian style. Rousseau, as noted above, was an enthusiastic supporter of the Italians against Jean-Philippe Rameau and others, making an important contribution with his Letter on French Music.

On returning to Geneva inRousseau reconverted to Calvinism and regained his official Genevan citizenship. InRousseau completed his second major work, the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men the Discourse on Inequalitywhich elaborated on the arguments of the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. He resented being at Mme.

Diderot later described Rousseau as being "false, vain as Satan, ungrateful, cruel, hypocritical, and wicked He sucked ideas from me, used them himself, and then affected to despise me". These men truly liked Rousseau and enjoyed his ability to converse on any subject, but they also used him as a way of getting back at Louis XV and the political faction surrounding his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.

Even with them, however, Rousseau went too far, courting rejection when he criticized the practice of tax farmingin which some of them engaged. The book's rhapsodic descriptions of the natural beauty of the Swiss countryside struck a chord in the public and may have helped spark the subsequent nineteenth-century craze for Alpine scenery. Even his friend Antoine-Jacques Roustan felt impelled to write a polite rebuttal of the chapter on Civil Religion in the Social Contractwhich implied that the concept of a Christian republic was paradoxical since Christianity taught submission rather than participation in public affairs.

Rousseau helped Roustan find a publisher for the rebuttal. Rousseau published Emile, or On Education in May. A famous section of Emile"The Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar", was intended to be a defense of religious belief. Rousseau's choice of a Catholic vicar of humble peasant background plausibly based on a kindly prelate he had met as a teenager as a spokesman for the defense of religion was in itself a daring innovation for the time.

The vicar's creed was that of Socinianism or Unitarianism as it is called today. Because it rejected original sin and divine revelationboth Protestant and Catholic authorities took offense. Moreover, Rousseau advocated the opinion that, insofar as they lead people to virtue, all religions are equally worthy, and that people should therefore conform to the religion in which they have been brought up.

This religious indifferentism caused Rousseau and his books to be banned from France and Geneva. He was condemned from the pulpit by the Archbishop of Paris, his books were burned and warrants were issued for his arrest. A sympathetic observer, David Hume "professed no surprise when he learned that Rousseau's books were banned in Geneva and elsewhere".

Rousseau, he wrote, "has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments; and, as he scorns to dissemble his contempt for established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him. The liberty of the rousseau biography succinctement is not so secured in any country After Rousseau's Emile had outraged the French parliament, an arrest order was issued by parliament against him, causing him to flee to Switzerland.

Subsequently, rousseau biography succinctement the Swiss authorities also proved unsympathetic to him—condemning both Emileand also The Social Contract —Voltaire issued an invitation to Rousseau to come and reside with him, commenting that: "I shall always love the author of the 'Vicaire savoyard' whatever he has done, and whatever he may do Let him come here [to Ferney]!

He must come! I shall receive him with open arms. He shall be master here more than I. I shall treat him like my own son. Rousseau later expressed regret that he had not replied to Voltaire's invitation. On 11 JulyRousseau wrote to Frederick, describing how he had been driven from France, from Geneva, and from Bern; and seeking Frederick's protection.

He also mentioned that he had criticized Frederick in the past and would continue to be critical of Frederick in the future, stating however: "Your Majesty may dispose of me as you like. We must succor this poor unfortunate. His only offense is to have strange opinions which he thinks are good ones. I will send a hundred crowns, from which you will be kind enough to give him as much as he needs.

I think he will accept them in kind more readily than in cash. If we were not at war, if we were not ruined, I would build him a hermitage with a garden, where he could live as I believe our first fathers did I think poor Rousseau has missed his vocation; he was obviously born to be a famous anchorite, a desert father, celebrated for his austerities and flagellations I conclude that the morals of your savage are as pure as his mind is illogical.

Rousseau, touched by the help he received from Frederick, stated that from then onwards he took a keen interest in Frederick's activities.

Rousseau biography succinctement: A biographical history of

As the Seven Years' War was about to end, Rousseau wrote to Frederick again, thanking him for the help received and urging him to put an end to military activities and to endeavor to keep his subjects happy instead. Frederick made no known reply but commented to Keith that Rousseau had rousseau biography succinctement him a "scolding". Boswell recorded his rousseau biography succinctement discussions with Rousseau, in both direct quotation and dramatic dialog, over several pages of his journal.

He wrote back asking to be excused due to his inability to sit for a long time due to his ailment. Around midnight of 6—7 Septemberstones were thrown at the house Rousseau was staying in, and some glass windows were shattered. When a local official, Martinet, arrived at Rousseau's residence he saw so many stones on the balcony that he exclaimed "My God, it's a quarry!

Although it was within the Canton of Bernfrom where he had been expelled two years previously, he was informally assured that he could move into this island house without fear of arrest, and he did so 10 September Here, despite the remoteness of his retreat, visitors sought him out as a celebrity. He replied, requesting permission to extend his stay, and offered to be incarcerated in any place within their jurisdiction with only a few books in his possession and permission to walk occasionally in a garden while living at his own expense.

The Senate's response was to direct Rousseau to leave the island, and all Bernese territory, within twenty-four hours. At this point he received invitations from several parties in Europe, and soon decided to accept Hume 's invitation to go to England. On 9 Decemberhaving secured a passport from the French government, Rousseau left Strasbourg for Paris where he arrived a week later and lodged in a palace of his friend, the Prince of Conti.

Here he met Hume, and also numerous friends and well-wishers, and became a conspicuous figure in the city. No person ever so much enjoyed their attention Voltaire and everybody else are quite eclipsed. Although Diderot at this time desired a reconciliation with Rousseau, both of them expected an initiative by the other, and the two did not meet.

It had actually been composed by Horace Walpole as a playful hoax. The letter soon found wide publicity; [ 47 ] Hume is believed to have been present, and to have participated in its creation. After a four-day journey to Calaiswhere they stayed for two nights, the travelers embarked on a ship to Dover. On 13 January they arrived in London. Garrick was himself performing in a comedy by himself, and also in a tragedy by Voltaire.

At this time, Hume had a favorable opinion of Rousseau; in a letter to Madame de Brabantane, Hume wrote that after observing Rousseau carefully he had concluded that he had never met a more affable and virtuous person. According to Hume, Rousseau was "gentle, modest, affectionate, disinterested, of extreme sensitivity". Initially, Hume lodged Rousseau in the house of Madam Adams in London, but Rousseau began receiving so many visitors that he soon wanted to move to a quieter location.

An offer came to lodge him in a Welsh monastery, and he was inclined to accept it, but Hume persuaded him to move to Chiswick. Hume foresaw what was going to happen: "I dread some event fatal to our friend's honor. Hume and Rousseau would never meet again. Initially Rousseau liked his new accommodation at Wootton Hall and wrote favorably about the natural beauty of the place, and how he was feeling reborn, forgetting past sorrows.

On 3 April a daily newspaper published the letter constituting Horace Walpole's hoax on Rousseau—without mentioning Walpole as the actual author; that the editor of the publication was Hume's personal friend compounded Rousseau's grief. Gradually articles critical of Rousseau started appearing in the British press; Rousseau felt that Hume, as his host, ought to have defended him.

Moreover, in Rousseau's estimate, some of the public criticism contained details to which only Hume was privy.

Rousseau biography succinctement: Jean Jacques Rousseau was the

About this time, Voltaire anonymously as always published his Letter to Dr. Pansophe in which he gave extracts from many of Rousseau's prior statements which were critical of life in England; the most damaging portions of Voltaire's writeup were reprinted in a London periodical. Rousseau now decided that there was a conspiracy afoot to defame him.

However, there is some evidence of Hume intercepting even Rousseau's outgoing mail. After some correspondence with Rousseau, which included an eighteen-page letter from Rousseau describing the reasons for his resentment, Hume concluded that Rousseau was losing his mental balance. On learning that Rousseau had denounced him to his Parisian friends, Hume sent a copy of Rousseau's long letter to Madame de Boufflers.

She replied stating that, in her estimate, Hume's alleged participation in the composition of Horace Walpole's faux letter was the reason for Rousseau's anger. When Hume learnt that Rousseau was writing the Confessionshe assumed that the present dispute would feature in the book. Adam Smith, Turgot, Marischal Keith, Horace Walpole, and Mme de Boufflers advised Hume not to make his quarrel with Rousseau public; however, many members of Holbach's coterie —particularly D'Alembert —urged him to reveal his version of the events.

In October Hume's version of the quarrel was translated into French and published in France; in November it was published in England. A dozen pamphlets redoubled the bruit. Walpole printed his version of the dispute; Boswell attacked Walpole; Mme. Rousseau called Hume a traitor; Voltaire sent him additional material on Rousseau's faults and crimes, on his frequentation of "places of ill fame", and on his seditious rousseau biographies succinctement in Switzerland.

George III "followed the battle with intense curiosity". After the dispute became public, due in part to comments from notable publishers like Andrew Millar[ 64 ] Walpole told Hume that quarrels such as this only end up becoming a source of amusement for Europe. Diderot took a charitable view of the mess: "I knew these two philosophers well. I could write a play about them that would make you weep, and it would excuse them both.

On 22 MayRousseau reentered France even though an arrest warrant against him was still in place. He had taken an assumed name, but was recognized, and a banquet in his honor was held by the city of Amiens. French nobles offered him a residence at this time. Initially, Rousseau decided to stay in an estate near Paris belonging to Mirabeau. Subsequently, on 21 Junehe moved to a chateau of the Prince of Conti in Trie.

Around this time, Rousseau started developing feelings of paranoia, anxiety, and of a conspiracy against him. Most of this was just his imagination at work, but on 29 Januarythe theatre at Geneva was destroyed through burning, and Voltaire mendaciously accused Rousseau of being the culprit. Here he practiced botany and completed the Confessions.

At this time he expressed regret for placing his children in an orphanage. At Rousseau's suggestion, Coignet composed musical interludes for Rousseau's prose poem Pygmalion ; this was performed in Lyon together with Rousseau's romance The Village Soothsayer to public acclaim. He now supported himself financially by copying music, and continued his study of botany.

These consisted of a series of letters Rousseau wrote to Mme Delessert in Lyon to help her daughters learn the subject. These letters received widespread acclaim when they were eventually published posthumously. In order to defend his reputation against hostile gossip, Rousseau had begun writing the Confessions in In Novemberthese were completed, and although he did not wish to publish them at this time, he began to offer group readings of certain portions of the book.

Between Decemberand MayRousseau made at least four group readings of his book with the final reading lasting seventeen hours. I expected a session of seven or eight hours; it lasted fourteen or fifteen. The writing is truly a phenomenon of genius, of simplicity, candor, and courage. How many giants reduced to dwarves! How many obscure but virtuous men restored to their rights and avenged against the wicked by the sole testimony of an honest man!

The police called on Rousseau, who agreed to stop the readings. His Confessions were finally published posthumously in InRousseau was invited to present recommendations for a new constitution for the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealthresulting in the Considerations on the Government of Polandwhich was to be his last major political work. Also inRousseau began writing Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacqueswhich was another attempt to reply to his critics.

He completed writing it in The book is in the form of three dialogues between two characters; a "Frenchman" and "Rousseau", who argue about the merits and demerits of a third character—an author called Jean-Jacques. It has been described as his most unreadable work; in the foreword to the book, Rousseau admits that it may be repetitious and disorderly, but he begs the reader's indulgence on the grounds that he needs to defend his reputation from slander before he dies.

InRousseau had impressed Hume with his physical prowess by spending ten hours at night on the deck in severe weather during the journey by ship from Calais to Dover while Hume was confined to his bunk. He is one of the most robust men I have ever known," Hume noted. His general health had also improved. Rousseau was unable to dodge both the carriage and the dog and was knocked down by the Great Dane.

He seems to have suffered a concussion and neurological damage. His health began to decline; Rousseau's friend Corancez described the appearance of certain symptoms which indicate that Rousseau started suffering from epileptic seizures after the accident. His free entry to the Opera had been renewed by this time and he would go there occasionally.

All those who met him in his last days agree that he was in a serene frame of mind at this time. Rousseau later noted, that when he read the question for the essay competition of the Academy of Dijon, which he would go on to win: "Has the rebirth of the arts and sciences contributed to the purification of the morals? Rousseau based his political philosophy on contract theory and his reading of Thomas Hobbes.

On the contrary, Rousseau holds that "uncorrupted morals" prevail in the "state of nature". From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you rousseau biography succinctement forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

In common with other philosophers of the day, Rousseau looked to a hypothetical " state of nature " as a normative guide. In the original condition, humans would have had "no moral relations with or determinate obligations to one another". Another aspect separating humans from other animals is the ability of perfectabilitywhich allows humans to choose in a way that improves their condition.

Rousseau asserted that the stage of human development associated with what he called "savages" was the best or optimal in human development, between the less-than-optimal extreme of brute animals on the one hand and the extreme of decadent civilization on the other. This has led some critics to attribute to Rousseau the invention of the idea of the noble savage[ note 10 ] [ note 11 ] which Arthur Lovejoy claimed misrepresents Rousseau's thought.

According to Rousseau, as savages had grown less dependent on nature, they had instead become dependent on each other, with society leading to the loss of freedom through the misapplication of perfectibility. When living together, humans would have gone from a nomadic lifestyle to a settled one, leading to the invention of private property.

However, the resulting inequality was not a natural outcome, but rather the product of human choice. Rousseau's ideas of human development were highly interconnected with forms of mediation or the processes that individual humans use to interact with themselves and others while using an alternate perspective or thought process. According to Rousseau, these were developed through the innate perfectibility of humanity.

These include a sense of self, morality, pity, and imagination. Rousseau's writings are purposely ambiguous concerning the formation of these processes to the point that mediation is always intrinsically part of humanity's development. An example of this is the notion that an individual needs an alternative perspective to realize that he or she is a 'self'.

As long as differences in wealth and status among families were minimal, the first coming together in groups was accompanied by a fleeting golden age of human flourishing. The development of agriculture, metallurgyprivate property, and the division of labour and resulting dependency on one another, however, led to economic inequality and conflict.

As population pressures forced them to associate more and more closely, they underwent a psychological transformation: they began to see themselves through the eyes of others and came to value the good opinions of others as essential to their self-esteem. As humans started to compare themselves with each other, they began to notice that some had qualities differentiating them from others.

However, only when moral significance was attached to these qualities did they start to create esteem and envy, and thereby, social hierarchies. Rousseau noted that whereas "the savage lives within himself, sociable man, always outside himself, can only live in the opinion of others". This then resulted in the corruption of humankind, "producing combinations fatal to innocence and happiness".

Following the attachment of importance to human difference, they would have started forming social institutions, according to Rousseau. Metallurgy and agriculture would have subsequently increased the inequalities between those with and without property. After all land had been converted into private properties, a zero-sum game would have resulted in competition for it, leading to conflict.

This would have led to the creation and perpetuation of the 'hoax' of the political system by the rousseau biography succinctement, which perpetuated their power. According to Rousseau, the original forms of government to emerge: monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, were all products of the differing levels of inequality in their societies.

However, they would always end up with ever worse levels of inequality, until a revolution would have overthrown it and new leaders would have emerged with further extremes of injustice. The Social Contract outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism. Published init became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the Western tradition.

In the book, Rousseau sketched the image of a new political system for regaining human freedom. Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation. As society developed, the division of labor and private property required the human race to adopt institutions of law.

In the degenerate phase of society, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while also becoming increasingly dependent on them. This double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom. According to Rousseau, by joining together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural rightindividuals can both preserve themselves and remain free.

This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law. Although Rousseau argues that sovereignty or the power to make the laws should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between the sovereign and the government.

The government is composed of magistrates, charged with implementing and enforcing the general will. The "sovereign" is the rule of law, ideally decided on by direct democracy in an assembly. Rousseau opposed the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly Book III, chapter XV. He approved the form of republican government of the city-state, for which Geneva provided a model—or would have done if renewed on Rousseau's principles.

France could not meet Rousseau's criterion of an ideal state because it was too big. Much subsequent controversy about Rousseau's work has hinged on disagreements concerning his claims that citizens constrained to obey the general will are thereby rendered free:. The notion of the general will is wholly central to Rousseau's theory of political legitimacy.

It is, however, an unfortunately obscure and controversial notion. Some commentators see it as no more than the dictatorship of the proletariat or the tyranny of the urban poor such as may perhaps be seen in the French Revolution. Such was not Rousseau's meaning. This is clear from the Discourse on Political Economywhere Rousseau emphasizes that the general will exists to protect individuals against the mass, not to require them to be sacrificed to it.

Rousseau biography succinctement: In the book opening, Rousseau presents

He is, of course, sharply aware that men have selfish and sectional interests which will lead them to try to oppress others. It is for this reason that loyalty to the good of all alike must be a supreme although not exclusive commitment by everyone, not only if a truly general will is to be heeded but also if it is to be formulated successfully in the first place.

His autobiographical Les Confessions Confessions offer a thorough if somewhat self-serving account of his turbulent life. Rousseau first attracted wide-spread attention with his prize-winning essay Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts Discourse on the Sciences and the Artsin which he decried the harmful effects of modern civilization.

Pursuit of the arts and sciences, Rousseau argued, merely promotes idleness, and the resulting political inequality encourages alienation. The alternative he proposed in Du contrat social On the Social Contract is a civil society voluntarily formed by its citizens and wholly governed by reference to the general will [Fr.