Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778, political
philosopher, and citizen of Geneva.
No philosopher had a greater influence on the culture of Europe
in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His
Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750) developed the
theme which runs through nearly all his works: that mankind is
essentially good, and that society works to produce vice. Later
works elaborate on this insight: the Discours sur l'origine de
l'inegalité (1755) explores the ways
in which society introduces artificial divisions and inequalities
between human beings, thereby creating vice. Du Contrat
social (1762) is
an appeal for republicanism in states other than Geneva. In
Julie; ou, la nouvelle Héloïse (1761) he turns from the
public world to the private domestic circle, and in
Émile; ou, l'Éducation (1762) he describes the
ideal education. The works of his last years are
autobiographical: Confessions,
Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques (1780), and Les
Rêveries du promeneur solitaire (1782).
