Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
Lecture 1
PHIL 1003
2008-09
Who was Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
(1712-1778)
• 1712: born in city of Geneva
• Son of a watchmaker
• Mother dies at his birth; raised
by father
• No formal education
• Apprenticed to an engraver,
but escaped;
• Wandering life until his 30’s
• 1750-62: writes major works
• 1762: goes into exile to escape
prosecution for ideas on
religion and politics
• 1767: returns to France
incognito
• 1778: dies near Paris
Rousseau’s major works
Title
Date
Subject
DSA
1750
Sci/arts correlate
w/ moral decay
Peasant opera;
Italian style
Village
Soothsayer
Disc…Inequality
1752
1755
Origins of inequality in
society
Julie, or the new
Heloise
Emile
1761
Novel extolling
family values
1762
Pedagogicyto produce
best man/citizen
Social Contract
1762
Political reform
Confessions
1782
Autobiography
A philosophical life:
the personal is political
Rousseau’s ‘reform’
• His ‘reform’: gives up the trappings of a
gentleman:
– sword,
– watch,
– gold lace,
– white stockings
– wig
• Copies music in order to earn a steady
livelihood.
Rousseau’s Life, 1762-1778
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1762 condemnations of Emile and the Social Contract;
Flees France; takes refuge in Switzerland;
Learns botany;
1765 goes to England at invitation of David Hume; they
quarrel;
1767 returns to France under assumed name;
Writes autobiographical works—Confs., Dialogues,
Reveries,
Copies music and continues to study botany;
Dies 4 July 1778 at Ermenonville, Ile de France.
Re-interred with Voltaire in Paris (Pantheon) during
French Revolution.
Montmorency, France:
Rousseau’s escape to Yverdon (Switz.)
One of many famous portraits of
Rousseau studying nature
1750: Landmark Year
• Vision on the road to Vincennes;
– question for prize essay: “whether the
restoration of the Sciences and Arts has
contributed to the purification of morals.”
• Rousseau formulates his vision:
– “I could no longer see any greatness or
beauty except in being free and virtuous,
superior to fortune and men’s opinion, and
independent of all external circumstances”
(Confs., Bk 8).
Discourse on the Origins
Of Inequality among Men
(1754)
Dedication to Geneva
•
•
•
•
“Citizen of Geneva” (DSA and DOI title pages)
Geneva = republic (vs absolutist France)
Virtuous, vs Paris
Advocates elected magistracy of merit (vs
purchased offices in France):
– similarities to Chinese selection system for officials;
– uses elections of the best and most virtuous instead
of exams (CUP ed. 1997, 117 [11]);
– Cf. to Athenian rotation system.
Paris versus Geneva
Paris (modern Athens)
• Corrupt
• Unnatural
• Weak
• Citizens dominated by
opinions of others
• Complex and large:
officials, taxes, rules
• Concern w/ status
• Lack of genuine relations
among people.
Geneva (modern Sparta)
• Virtuous: time for
unfortunate, Fatherland
and friends (DSA, p. 16)
• No theatre
• Defense of homeland
• Simplicity
• Small
• Non-aggressive
• Rousseau’s ideal.
Discourse = thought experiment
• A meditation, not a fact-finding mission;
• Conducted during long, solitary walks in
the woods.
– “…hypothetical and conditional reasonings”;
– “elucidate the Nature of things [rather] than
show their genuine origin” (132, [6]).
– “Let us begin by setting aside all the facts….”
DOI Frontispiece:
what does it mean?
“The Philosophers who have examined the
foundations of society have all felt the necessity
of going back as far as the state of Nature,
But none of them has reached it” (132).
None of them has stripped man naked.
“All that is challenging in The
Social Contract
had previously appeared in the
Discourse on Inequality…” (Confs.,
Bk 9).
Hobbes and Locke on S of N
• Hobbes:
– man is by nature fearful, contentious;
– state of nature = war of all against all.
• Locke:
– man is by nature capable of sociability before
he enters into society,
• e.g. contract b/w a Swiss and an Indian in the
woods of America;
– protection of property is reason to form
governments.
Rousseau vs Hobbes and Locke
• Both are wrong:
– Man is naturally peaceable and isolated;
– Man is not naturally sociable;
– he must become so, through a long and
complicated development;
– Inequality, exploitation and arbitrary rule =
outcome.
Where does inequality come
from?
Is it natural?
Unnatural?
What is inequality?
• Physical,
– by nature; very slight.
• Political:
– Very great;
– caused by amour-propre [vanity], human
institutions, e.g. property: “this is mine”;
– social problems resulting from inequality:
• Few rule many; i.e. rich rule poor
• Exploitation of most of humanity by the few.
“Once Peoples are
accustomed to Masters,
they can no longer do without
them” (CUP ed. 1997, 115, [6]).
“To be and to appear became
two entirely different things,
and from this distinction arose
ostentatious display, deceitful cunning,
and all the vices that follow in their
wake” (DOI, pt. II, par. 27).
Savage vs social man
• “…the Savage lives within himself; social
man, always outside himself, is capable of
living only in the opinion of others and…
derives the sentiment of his own existence
solely from their judgment…” (DOI, II.57).
We live in the opinion of others
Various enslavements:
• We acquire status items;
– Watches
– Bags
– Phones
• Spend money we don’t
have;
• Run to our chains (jobs?
bank loans?) so we can
have enough money for
status items!
• Prada bags
Do we really need these bags?
• “…man, who had been free and
independent, is now…subjugated by a
multitude of new needs”;
• “rich, he needs [others’] services; poor, he
needs their help”;
• “Laws…gave the weak new fetters and the
rich new forces…[they] transformed a
skillful usurpation into an irrevocable right”
(II.33).
Living in the opinion of others:
Women’s fashion, reign of Louis XVI
What’s left? Empty appearances!
• “…everything being reduced to
appearances, everything becomes
factitious and play–acting…
• …we have nothing more than a deceiving
and frivolous exterior, honor without virtue,
reason without wisdom, and pleasure
without happiness…” (DOI, II.57).
Big Hair, 18th century-style
What kinds of inequality does
this picture illustrate?
We enable our own
oppression:
“Citizens let themselves be oppressed only so
far as they are swept up by blind ambition
and…come to hold Domination dearer than
independence, and consent to bear chains so
that they might impose chains in turn” [II.51].
Civilized misery
• “…the Citizen, forever active, sweats,
scurries, constantly agonizes…he works to
the death, even rushes toward it in order
to be in a position to live…He courts the
great whom he hates, and the rich whom
he despises; he spares nothing to attain
the honor of serving them…” (II.57).
The final word on inequality
• Prelude to Marx:
“…it is manifestly against the Law of
Nature, however defined, that...a
handful of people abound in superfluities
while the starving multitude lacks
necessities” (II.58).
Rousseau’s first tomb:
Ermenonville, France