JeanJacques Rousseau

1
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• Overview, continued

2
The two key political principlesFreedom and
Equality

• the greatest good of all consists in.Freedom,
  because any individual dependence is that much
  force taken away from the State
• Equality because freedom cannot subsist without
  it.
• as for wealth, no citizen should be so very rich
  that he can buy another,
• And none so poor that he is compelled to sell
  himself (Social Contract, 2.11).

3
Personal is political and philosophical

• Rousseau tried to live his philosophy. Documents
  this attempt in Confessions.

4
Rousseaus reform

• Gives up job as cashier to tax farmers
• Gives up trappings of a gentleman (Confs., Bk 8)
  
• sword
• watch
• gold lace
• white stockings
• Wig
• Copies music in order to earn a steady
  livelihood
• Sends five children to orphanage as soon 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 re music
• philosophically significant due to its effects on
  the moods
• 1752 famous controversy between French and
  Italian opera fans,
• Rousseau argues that Italian music encourages
  freedom to feel, a freedom essential to civic
  freedom
• Why? Italitan more melodic and less formal than
  French music
• 1752/3 The Village Soothsayer, opera about
  peasants, not nobles
• composed in Italian style
• great hit with the French King.

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Following Rousseau, dAlembert argued

• freedom in music implies freedom to feel, and
  freedom to feel implies freedom to act, and
  freedom to act meant the ruin of stateslet us
  put a brake on singing if we do not wish to have
  liberty in speaking to follow soon afterwards
  (see handout, p. 4).

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Rousseaus major works
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Rousseaus verdict on the DSA

• When this essay was finished I showed it to
  Diderot, who was pleased with it and suggested a
  few corrections. This work, however, though full
  of strength and fervour, is completely lacking in
  logic and order. Of all those that have
  proceeded from my pen it is the most feebly
  argued, the most deficient in proportion and
  harmony (Confs., Bk 8).

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The next step

• Corrupted society needs to be refounded on new
  foundations Rousseaus Discourse on Inequality
  (1754) and On the Social Contract (1762).

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Rousseaus verdict on his works

• Everything that I was able to retain of these
  crowds of great truths which illuminated me under
  that tree on road to Vincenneshas been weakly
  scattered about in my three principal writings,
  namely that first discourse, the one on
  inequality, and the treatise on education, which
  three works are inseparable and together form the
  same whole (Letters to Malesherbes, 2).

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Montmorency, France Rousseaus escape route
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Rousseaus 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 worksConfs., Dialogues,
  Reveries,
• Copies music and continues to study botany
• Dies 4 July 1778 at at Ermenonville, Ile de
  France.
• Re-interred with Voltaire in Paris (Pantheon)
  during French Revolution.

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Rousseau Botanizing
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Rousseaus first tomb Ermenonville, France
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Rousseaus moral guide

• All thesehair-splitting metaphysical
  subtletiescount for nothing against the basic
  principles adopted by my reason, confirmed by my
  heart and bearing the seal of my conscience
  uninfluenced by passion (Revs., 3rd walk).
• The heart and the conscience must approve what
  reason dictates.

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Rousseaus religion

• Lonely meditation, the study of nature and the
  contemplation of the universe lead the solitary
  to aspire continually to the maker of all things
  and to seekfor the purpose of all he sees and
  the cause of all he feels (Reveries, 3rd walk).
• Read the book of nature!
• Nature may be teleological.

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Role of God

• Natural religion provides all necessary religious
  truths
• Creation cannot be result of a mere throw of dice
  (Savoyard Vicar, Emile)
• A supreme intelligence created the world
• At odds with materialist, atheist philosophes,
  who had been his friends.

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Rousseau vs the materialists

• I was living with certain modern
  philosophersthese ardent missionaries of
  atheism, these overbearing dogmatists could not
  patiently endure that anyone should think
  differently from them on any subject
  whatsoevernever once did I adopt their dismal
  teaching (Revs., 3rd walk).

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Questions

• 1. Is it true that we are losing our humanity and
  being ossified into ruthless machines? 2. The
  independence of technology is inevitable
  nowadays.
• But are we abusing the technology which brings
  convenience to us?
• 3. Is there any unnecessary use of technology?

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Questions on Diderot

• 1. What is Natural law? Diderot uses
  Tahitians, a group of people described as
  strictly obeying Natural laws only, to
  demonstrate examples of Natural laws. However,
  I do not understand what he means by natural
  laws. 2. How can we know if some moral rules
  (e.g. dont kill, dont be homosexual) are
  Natural laws?
• 3.This question is associated with another
  question is good and evil natural? It would
  be difficult, even impossible, to figure out the
  method since we can't know the moral values that
  we think of as intuitive because it ? is
  really natural, or because we are affected by
  society and intuitive ideas are imposed on us
  by those in power.
• We should be careful to avoid the problem of
  Mencius claim that ren is natural for people
  please explain.