Genevan philosopher, writer and political theorist, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the main thinkers of the Morderliness. Interestingly, despite being historically and philosophically allocated in the enlightenment, Rousseau is one of the greatest critics of the philosophy of his time: the Enlightenment philosophy. Rousseau is considered an important contractualist theorist, leaving contributions for the continuity of the debate about the formation of a civil structure.
Read too: John Locke – like Rousseau, was adept at contractualist ideals
Summary on Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau was a contractualist philosopher.
The idea of social contract is based on the assumption that there is a state of nature.
The state of nature is a hypothetical state in which there is no type of moral, political or social intervention.
The end of the state of nature takes place with the formation of a social contract or pact.
Rousseau is based on the assumption that the state of human nature is good and the formation of the social pact (as established until then) corrupts it.
Video lesson on Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is not French, as many people think. He is Swiss, born in the city of Geneva on June 28, 1712. His mother, Suzanne Bernard, died with her baby boy. She left Rousseau a vast library, which was used by Isaac, her father, to provide the boy's first education. Isaac raised his son through from Suzanne's library until the boy was seven years old. In addition to this library, they read the library inherited from Rousseau's maternal grandfather.
His father had a problem, getting into a fight with a law enforcement official. He failed to prove his innocence, served time and went into exile from Geneva. Rousseau never saw him again. maternal uncle care, Bernard. His uncle sent him to France to study with Pastor Lambercier.
The future philosopher returned to Geneva in 1724. Your uncle put you to be an apprentice of various trades, as messenger and brass engraver, but Rousseau did not take them seriously. He really enjoyed reading, studying, writing and getting in touch with nature through his walks in the woods, something he learned from Lambercier.
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These walks took Rousseau away from Geneva for a long time. He left the city walls for his walks and forgot to come back when the gates closed, which left him out. Several times, he was late to start his work as a recorder, which led his master to punish him severely. The punishments were even physical. In a third and final delay, Rousseau he decided to leave town, going to live alone when he was only 16 years old..
Rousseau was the son and grandson of Protestants. Being adrift, very young, with hunger and material needs, he sought the care of the PConfignon, a cleric who sheltered the needy and did a work of converting “sinful” Protestants to Catholicism. The priest sent him to Madame de Warens, who sent him to Turin to live in a shelter for apprentices in Catholic practices.
There he worked, studied Latin and music and became a kind of teacher (preceptor) of children of the bourgeoisie. Rousseau used this experience with teaching children to compose one of his most celebrated works in the sphere of the philosophy of education, the book emileor Da andeducation.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau he was not a man who followed the moral standards of his time, like getting married in church and raising a traditional family. He had a long relationship with a woman, Thérèse Levasseur, and had five children with her. Due to lack of financial conditions and family structure, the couple handed over all their children for adoption.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an intellectual and was aware of his intelligence. He wanted to shine, he wanted to be successful with his writings. Until then he was a stranger. His luck began to change in 1749, when he came across an advertisement for a literary competition from the Academia de Dijón.
These contests were common at the time and aimed to promote philosophical, scientific, artistic and cultural debate. They presented a problem question that had to be answered by a newsroom. The theme was: “Does the progress of the arts and sciences contribute to corruption or the investigation of customs?”. Rousseau wrote a text, won the competition, managed to get his text published as a prize, and began to achieve some fame at the time. The text was Speech about the çideas and the Therites.
The 1749 milestone changed his life and he began to write intensely. He returned to Geneva and went back to practicing the Protestantism. It was at this moment that he connected with the intellectual elite of his time, and met the philosopher Denis Diderot, one of the creators of the Encyclopedia. Rousseau was one of the most celebrated contributors to the Encyclopedia, having written about music and philosophy.
Rousseau's period of intellectual effervescence was also that of the Enlightenment. Illuminists criticized the old regime (the absolutist monarchy), which yielded harsh persecutions by the French Crown and the Church on these thinkers, such as Rousseau, Voltaire and Diderot.
In 1762, he had to take refuge, going to Corsica. In 1767, he managed to return to French territory, married Thérèse, with whom he already had an old relationship; it was also during this period that he wrote his last writings. Rousseau died on July 2, 1778, after a long process of neurological illness.
See too: What is political philosophy?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Top Ideas
Rousseau was undoubtedly one of the greatest philosophers of all time. However, his philosophy is quite unorthodox, if compared to the common theories at the time. It is closer to criticism (political, moral and educational) than to a strong systematic network, which does not take away its value, on the contrary. That's why he was considered an essayist thinker, a great essay writer.
Rousseau had a thesis that appears throughout his work: that the human being is better when he is closer to nature. Rousseau learned to enjoy contact with the natural environment, without human intervention, since his youth. In emile, he already defended the child's contact with nature whenever possible.
His general theory says that the farther a human being is from nature, the more corrupt it becomes. He attributes the moral and intellectual corruption of the individual to the distancing that human beings take from nature by immersing themselves in the society, in social customs and conventions. It turns out that social conventions and human creations increasingly lead to a distance from nature. As social conventions and human creations, we can mention: sciences, arts, philosophy, customs.
Social contract and state of nature
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher contractualist. He was placed in a context of thinkers who divide humanity into two stages: a hypothetical stage called the state of nature; and the other that is demarcated by the creation of civil society, with laws and codes, which give rise to our social formation. This creation is established by a contract or social pact that shapes us, molds us, including the social, political and moral norms that determine our society.
for the english philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the state of human nature is marked by chaos. Rousseau runs the opposite line. For him, the state of human nature is the state of closeness to complete freedom and the non-corruption of the human being.
Many people end up reducing Rousseau's contractualist theory to the assertion that human beings are “naturally good”. This statement is not incorrect, however, caution is needed to understand it, as there is no morality in the state of nature. Saying that the human being is good by nature, considering the term good as something morally acceptable, is incorrect. Corruption begins with the creation of civil status through the social pact.
Video lesson on education in emile, by Rousseau
Work by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The famous philosopher Rousseau left music, entries for the Encyclopedia, plays and philosophical essays for posterity. Obviously, the thinker is best known for his essays. Among the texts, we can highlight the following as those that most represent his work:
From the contract sofficer: main work of political philosophy, Rousseau seeks to understand in this book how the transition from the state of nature to the civil state takes place.
Discourse on the origin of inequality among men: substantiates part of what was built in Of çcontract sofficer. It is a book that deals with how private property was responsible for human corruption.
Emile or Education: discusses how children should be educated to reach the level of civilized, happy and intelligent adults.
by Francisco Porfirio
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