Jean-Jacques+Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was part of a new generation of philosophers who began to move beyond their predecessor’s beliefs. He believed the only good government was the one that was formed and guided by the people and society. In simpler terms, he believed that a legitimate government was one that was consented from the people being governed. Rousseau also disputed that titles should be eradicated because all people were equal. His thoughts influenced the leaders of the French Revolution who went against the kings and nobles.

Rousseau was born on June 28, 1712 to Isaac Rousseau and Suzanne Bernard in Geneva, which was then an independent republic. His mother died only a few days later on July 7th and his only sibling, an older brother, ran away when he was still a child. Therefore, Rousseau was mainly brought up by his father. But eventually, his father left too because he got into a fight with a French captain and at the risk of imprisonment, left Geneva for the rest of his life. Rousseau was brought up by his uncle, who then sent him with his cousin to study in the village of Bosey. In 1728, he left Geneva and met Louise de Warens who was an important factor in his conversion to Catholicism. De Warens also made him forfeit his Genevan citizenship. Rousseau’s relationship to De Waren grew quite romantic, and during that time he made money through secretarial, teaching, and musical jobs. Then in 1754, he met a linen-maid named Therese Levasseaur, whom he eventually married and had five kids with, all of whom were left at an orphanage in Paris. It was at that time that

Rousseau became friendly with philosophers such as Condillac and Diderot. He wrote many books at that time such as //Discourse on the Arts and Sciences//, which made him famous and won the Academy’s prize. Than several years later he made the opera //__Le Devin du Village__// (The Village Soothsayer), which was a great success and got him even more recognition. These books were all major successes but his political views were mostly presented in two major expositions: //__Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men__//, and //__The Social Contract__//. In his //__Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men__//, Rousseau quarreled that people adopted laws and governors to protect their personal property, but in the whole procedure, they became enslaved by the government. Then in his //__The Social Contract__//, Rousseau tried to complement individual liberty with governmental liberty. It was basically based on an agreement on the part of an entire society to be governed by its general will. Another influential treatise he wrote was titled //__Emile__//.

Though he was quite famous, he didn’t practice what he preached. For instance, what he did to his kids, sending them to orphanages, where most kids generally died young, and also he believed woman to naturally be different than men. He thought females fragile and housewives. But back then, no one really gender was an important issue in the Enlightenment. Rousseau died on July 3, 1778. His book, //__Confessions__//, which was a biography, was published several years later.