The Philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau
I. Introduction: the Individual versus the Community
A. No one is indifferent about the teachings of Rousseau
B. All agree that Rousseau's writings have had a tremendous impact on the Age of Enlightenment.
C. Rousseau's objective is to reconcile individual freedom with the need for social order.
D. The dispute over Rousseau's writings is based on whether his ideal polity is democratic or tyrannical.
A. Born in 1712 to an impoverished Genevese family.
B. Mother was a dancing instructor, who died giving childbirth to Rousseau.
C. Father abandoned Rousseau at age 10.
D. Lived mostly as a drifter until age 26, when he finally realized that he wanted to make something of his life.
E. Under the tutelage of a wealthy benefactor, he studied the arts and philosophy.
1 . Wrote 'Discourse on the Arts and Sciences' and won a prestigious contest sponsored by the Academy of Dijon in 1749.
2. Rousseau became widely accepted in the Paris salons, but rejected this life as hypocritical and went into partial seclusion for the rest of his life.
3. Lived with an uneducated, peasant mistress, Therese Levasseur.
F. Died in 1778 in a rural town outside Paris.
III. Philosophical Approach to the Study of the Human Condition
A. Rousseau did not use a systematic methodology in his studies.
B. Method best described as "intuitional."
1. Literary skills which constitute a logical whole.
2. Anti-rational, romantic methodology.
C. Begins from the premise of his rational contemporaries: the State of Nature.
1. Hypothetical model of the essential human being in a setting with no social interaction or social institutions.
2. Unlike Hobbes and Locke, the essential human is good; does not simply strive for self-preservation.
a. Rousseau's natural man sees no contradiction between self-preservation and helping others survive.
b....