JeanJacques Rousseau

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• 1712-1753
• Early Life and Works

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Rousseau, 1753
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Early Life Events

• 1712 born Geneva 1778 dies outside Paris
• Mother dies shortly after his birth he is raised
  by his father, who reads the ancient author
  Plutarch with him (an important philosophical
  influence)
• Runs away from the engraver to whom he is
  apprenticed, thereby giving up the comfortable,
  stable life he could have led in Calvinist
  Geneva I should have been a good Christian, a
  good citizen, a good father, a good frienda good
  man in every way (Confs., bk 1).

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Geneva City of Rousseaus Birth

• Calvinist predestinarian theology that holds you
  are either saved or damned before your birth
• Very concerned with the outward appearance of
  virtue, so no dancing or theatre permitted
  dAlembert angered Rousseau and Geneva by arguing
  in his article Geneva that Geneva should have a
  theatre
• Oligarchic Republic ruled by a few
  well-established, wealthy families.
• When Rousseau wanted to return to Geneva, he had
  to give up his Catholicism (see next slide).

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After Geneva Before Paris

• Wandering youth Switzerland, Italy,
  Franceconverts to Catholicism
• Lives with Maman, an older woman who educates
  him and arranges his conversion
• Studies and teaches music in various locales
• Has no formal schooling follows a self-devised
  programme of study science, mathematics,
  philosophy and literature
• Injures himself in a chemistry experiment.

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Paris 1740s

• Moves to Paris meets men of letters, scientists
  and nobles studies chemistry with a famous
  lecturer together with Diderot, continues work in
  music
• Devises a system of musical notation that
  dAlembert praises in the Encyclopédie, and that
  Rousseau presents to the Royal Academy of
  Sciences in 1742 (but it was not adopted
  officially, however).
• His notation system for music is in his words
  supposed to be more simple, more precise and
  easier to learn it reduces the number of
  signs and their combinations (emphasis added
  OC, V, 130).

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Relation to Encyclopédie

• Close friend of Diderot and other Encyclopedists
  familiar with their philosophical inclinations
  falls out with Diderot in 1758 over dAlemberts
  article Geneva
• Writes 200 articles on music for the
  Encyclopédie, many of which are incorporated in
  his Dictionary of Music (1768)
• Writes on sciences, thereby participating in the
  Baconian agenda of the Encyclopédie chemistry
  (1740s) and botany (1765-1778) (how does this
  inform his Discourse on the Sciences and the
  Arts?)
• Scientific writings stressed clarification of
  definitions, and ease of access for beginners.

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1750 A Landmark Year

• Rousseau formulates the vision for his life and
  his philosophy
• I could no longer see any greatness or beauty
  except in being free and virtuous, superior to
  fortune and mens opinion, and independent of all
  external circumstances (Confs., bk 8).
• Prize of the Academy of Dijon awarded to his
  Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts
• Rousseau became famous practically overnight
  Diderot wrote,There has never been a success
  like it (quoted in Confs., bk 8).

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Questions on the Discourse on the Sciences and
the Arts

• Why does Rousseau think that the sciences and
  arts contribute to the degeneration of morals?
• Which societies does he consider virtuous and
  why? Why does he take such a dim view of China?
• Why would an academy in the Enlightenment give
  this work a prize?
• What are the prerequisites for virtue? How does
  Rousseau differ from Diderot?

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1750, cont.

• His reform gives up the trappings of an 18th
  century gentleman sword, watch, gold lace, white
  stockings and a fancy wig (what do you think is
  the significance of each of these items and of
  the reform itself?)
• Copies music in order to earn a steady
  livelihood
• Sends his five children to the orphanage as they
  are born I thought I was acting as a citizen
  and a father, and looked upon myself as a member
  of Platos Republic (Confs., bk 8).

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Music A Philosophical Concern

• Follows Plato and Aristotle in regarding music as
  philosophically significant due to its effects on
  the moods of listeners
• 1752 In a famous controversy between French and
  Italian opera fans, Rousseau argued that Italian
  music, more melodic and less formal than French
  music, encouraged freedom to feel, a freedom
  essential to civic freedom
• 1752/3 The Village Soothsayer, an opera about
  peasants, not nobles composed in the freer
  Italian stylea great hit at court and with the
  French Kingexpressed Rousseaus social and
  political, as well as musical, values.

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Next Installment

• Life and Works 1754-1778