JeanJacques Rousseau

1
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• Discourse on the
• sciences and the arts
• Lecture 2

2
Who was Jean-Jacques Rousseau? (1712-1778)

• Born Geneva 1712
• Son of a watchmaker
• Mother dies at his birth
• Raised by father
• No formal education
• Apprenticed to an engraver, but escaped
• Led a wandering life.

3
Rousseau, son of nature

• The Confessions, opening lines
• I have resolved on an enterprise which has no
  precedent and which, once complete, will have no
  imitator. My purpose is to display to my kind a
  portrait in every way true to nature, and the man
  I shall portray will be myself.
• Whether nature did well or ill in breaking the
  mould in which she formed me, is a question which
  can only be resolved after the reading of my
  book.

4
Early Life Events

• Reads Plutarchs Lives with his father
• Life of Lycurgus, mythical founder of Sparta
• Runs away from apprenticeship
• Is locked out of the city at dusk
• Gives up the stable life he could have led I
  should have been a good Christian, a good
  citizen, a good father, a good frienda good man
  in every way (Confs., Bk 1).

5
Genevan values

• Calvinist predestinarian theology
• Concern with outward appearance of virtue,
• No dancing or theatre!
• DAlemberts article Geneva (Encyclopédie)
• Rousseaus reply Letter to M. dAlembert on the
  Theater
• Oligarchic Republic ruled by oligarchy
• Rousseau gave up Catholicism to return to Geneva.

6
Geneva as ancient republic

• Rousseaus praise for Geneva (Epistle, DOI)
• A state of great antiquity
• Small in size
• Citizens follow what the virtuous magistrates
  propose
• Non-aggressive, but acts in own defense.
• What kind of state is this?
• Democratic?
• Aristocratic?

7
Sparta vs Athens

• Sparta
• Eugenics
• Defense is paramount
• Simple way of life no arts or sciences
• No external trade iron money
• Lots of training
• Communal meals
• Womens freedom
• Cowards ostracised
• Boys taught to steal
• Respect for elders

• Athens
• Many wars (5th cent.)
• Rich from allies tribute
• Many foreigners
• Trade center
• Bustling port
• Arts, architecture, philosophy
• Acropolis
• Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
• Softened by luxury (DSA)
• No eugenics

8
Paris versus Geneva

• Paris (modern Athens)
• Corrupt
• Unnatural
• Weak
• Citizens dominated by opinions of others
• Complex and large officials, taxes, rules
• Display of wealth
• 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
• This is Rousseaus ideal.

9
Geneva in reality

• Unequaleconomically and politically
• gap increased in 18th century
• Only a small percentage of men citizens
• 1500 out of 18,500 inhabitants
• Women and foreigners excluded
• Rule by oligarchy of patrician families
• Laxity in enforcement of Calvinist
  rules, -Sumptuary laws (what one may wear).

10
After Geneva

• Wandering youth Switzerland, Italy, France
• Lives with Maman, an older woman who educates
  him and arranges his conversion to Catholicism
• Studies and teaches music
• Follows own programme of study science,
  mathematics, philosophy and literature
• Injures himself in a chemistry experiment.

11
Enlightenment Paris 1740s

• Works as diplomat, tutor, secretary and all round
  in-house intellectual for the rich and famous
• Meets men of letters, scientists and nobles
• Devises system of musical notation, used even now
  in China
• DAlembert praises it in the Encyclopédie,
• Rousseau presents it to Royal Academy of
  Sciences
• Notation system example of reform of scientific
  language more simple, more precise and
  easier to learn (OC, V, 130).

12
Participation in Science Child of the
Enlightenment

• Baconianism of Encyclopédie
• Studies chemistry under famous teacher, Rouelle,
  with Diderot
• Sets up lab with Dupin de Francueil
• Writes on sciences
• chemistry (1740s) Institutions chymiques
• botany (1765-1778), Elementary Letters on Botany,
  Dictionary, correspondence
• Writes on clarification of definitions, ease of
  access to sciences.

13
The Eighteenth-Century Chemical Laboratory
14
Relation to Encyclopédie

• Close friend of Diderot and other Encyclopedists
• Meetings at Café Procope, Paris, Left Bank
• Enlightenment ideas
• progress through science,
• utility,
• Lockean sensationalism, materialism
• Falls out with Diderot over dAlemberts
  Geneva
• Writes 200 articles on music
• Many incorporated in Dictionary of Music (1768).

15
1750 Landmark Year

• Vision on the road to Vincennes
• Rousseau formulates his vision
• 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 DSA
• Diderot There has never been a success like it
  (quoted in Confs., Bk 8).

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Two major themes

• Freedom
• Berlin two notions of Freedom
• Rousseau uses both
• Ancient citys freedom to rule itself
• Modern individual self-determination, freedom
  from restraint
• E.g. Rousseaus escape from engraver.

• Equality
• Not absolute
• But sufficient so that one man cannot buy another
  (SC 2.11)
• Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
• Against law of nature for many to starve while
  few live in luxury!

18
The two key political principles

• 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).

19
Rousseaus 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
• Sends his 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).

20
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.

21
Rousseaus major works
22
Montmorency, France Rousseaus escape route
23
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.

24
One of many famous portraits of Rousseau studying
nature
25
Rousseaus first tomb Ermenonville, France
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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?