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

Village Soothsayer

1752 Peasant opera; Italian style

Disc…Inequality 1755 Origins of inequality in society

Julie, or the new Heloise

1761 Novel extolling family values

Emile 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