1783
Confessions published posthumously, revealing
prototype of modern confessional autobiography,
self-conscious, alienated intellectual
basic theme: conflict of individual and society
human nature basically good, corrupted by society
Biography:
born in Calvinist Geneva, son of watchmaker, basic education,
apprenticed to engraver, runs away, wanders in Italy; goes to
Paris as musician, meets Diderot, D’Alembert, philosophes
1750 Discourse on Arts and Sciences
wins prize of Academy of Dijon for response to question on
moral effects of culture on human character (negative);
contrasts
natural virtue with hypocrisy of society.
Goal of transparency, that “external appearance be always
a mirror of our hearts,” theme of authenticity, sincerity
1755 Discourse on Origin of Inequality
what was
the source of human society & inequality? Takes
man back to hypothetical state of nature; stress on primacy
of emotion (compassion) which is prior to reason. Themes
of freedom, equality, solitude as earliest human qualities.
Society as based on comparison, competition, rank, property
undoes the primitive freedom and happiness of natural man.
1762 Emile, or Education (a didactic novel
– teaching a lesson)
Education of a new kind as key to reform of human society;
moral sensibility as central focus; stress on experience,
feeling, nature; allow individual to develop naturally.
Insists on innocence and goodness of the young child,
opposed to harsh discipline, rote instruction; beginning of
modern view of children (not as sinners to be punished)
1762
Social Contract: major statement of his political program;
models are Roman Republic, Sparta, Genevan city state;
society has corrupted man, but right kind of society can
regenerate him; must be small to promote civic virtue.
Themes: 1) Freedom and liberty: revolutionary implications
“Men are born free, and everywhere they are in chains.”
2) General will = common interest, which he opposes to
Will of all = sum of individual, private interests
3) Civic religion necessary to promote civic cohesiveness
4) Political program: radical democratic egalitarianism
no rights prior to community, not even property rights;
important contrast to John Locke
Rousseau
is major influence on French Declaration of Rights of Man
(which follows Locke on property, not Rousseau)