JeanJacques Rousseau 171278

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 lexpression 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
  lhomme)
• women should be directed to the study of men and
  to that pleasure-giving knowledge (doivent
  tendre a létude 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?