Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
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Life, Times, Works

• Self-Educated Bohemian, settled in Paris, worked
  unsuccessfully as composer and other professions
• 1749 The (First) Discourse on the Sciences and
  the Arts
• 1755 The Second Discourse
• 1762 The Social Contract
• The Enlightenment(s)

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The State of Nature and Natural Man

• Instinct
• Vigor
• Strength
• Pity
• Love of Self
• (Amour de Soi vs. Amour Propre)

• Understanding / Reflection / Reason
• Speech
• Sociability
• Morality (Vices and Virtues)
• Time
• Property

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The Plot

• State of Nature
• The Golden Age, Family
• Metallurgy and Agriculture
• Division of Labor, Property and Dependence,
  Inequality
• A State of War
• A Social Contract

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Comparing States of Nature

• Thomas Hobbes Pity and Indifference vs. Passions
  and Violence
• John Locke Instinct vs. Reason and Speech
• Adam Smith Self-Sufficiency vs. Dependence
• Aristotle solitude vs. the social/political
  animal

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The Function of the State of Nature

• False Projections
• A Critical History of the Present
• The State of Nature as Thought Experiment
• Contingency and Necessity

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Human Nature in Rousseau

• Machiavelli and Rousseau
• Good vs. Evil
• Perfectibility vs. Immutable Nature
• Human Nature as a Blank Slate
• Nature and Nurture
• Individual vs. Species
• Rousseau and Anthropology

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Romanticism Considered

• Romanticism, Enlightenment and Commercial Society
• Romanticism as Quietism and Aestheticism
• Romanticism and Fascism
• Romanticism, Suffering and Reason
• Kants Categorical Imperative The maxim of all
  of your actions should be such that it could
  always become a general law
• Romanticism as a Testimony of Loss
• Voltaire Alors, nous allons au quatre pieds?

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Transcendentalism Romanticism American Style
Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman
Walden
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The Romantic Rousseau

• Glorification of Nature and the Noble Savage

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Rococo and the Ancien Regime
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Rococo Art and Architecture
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The Aesthetics of Fascism?
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Does he have a Point?

• Obesity, Anorexia etc.
• Allergies
• Cardio-Vascular Diseases
• Cancer
• Multiple Addictions (Drugs, Sex, Gambling)
• Insomnia
• Depression, Neurosis etc.
• Cheating
• Greed

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Coakley Cay Island
340 Acres 500 Meters Beach 25,000,000 USD
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Why would YOU want to live on Coakley Cay Island?

• Man is born free, and everywhere he is in
  chains
• The goal CC has achieved and offers you to be a
  part of
• To find a form of association that will defend
  and protect the person and goods of each
  associate with the full common force and by means
  of which each, uniting with all, nevertheless
  obey only himself and remain as free as before

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Our Principles

• The General Will
• Volonte Generale
• Citoyen (Citizen)
• Moral and Civil Freedom (Autonomy)

• The Will of All / Particular Wills
• Volonte de Tous
• Bourgeois
• (Private Person)
• Natural Freedom

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in institutional practice

• Sovereignty inalienable and indivisible
• Sovereign and Government
• Laws and Decrees

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FAQ

• What does the legislator do?
• Is it going to be Big Government?
• Does it hurt, being forced to be free?
• Can I sue?
• Can I maintain my religious convictions?
• Id like to form an interest group
• Is it okay to be a Woman?
• Sorry, what was the General Will again?