In existographies, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) (IQ:180|#145) (Cattell 1000:43) [RGM:118|1,320+] (Murray 4000:18|WP / 6|WL) (EPD:M1) (CR:49), aka "Jean-Jacques" (Sade, 1783) or "Rousseau", was a Genevan philosopher noted for []
Overview
In 1762, Rousseau, in his The Social Contract: Principles of the Political Right, argued the following position, in respect to forces: [1]
“Now as men cannot create any new forces, but only combine and direct those that exist, they have no other means of self-preservation than to form by aggregation of sum of forces which may overcome the resistance, to put them in action by a single motive power, and make them work in concert.”
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Influenced
The only picture in Immanuel Kant's otherwise sparsely decorated home was a portrait of Rousseau that he hung over his writing desk. (Ѻ)
Education
Rousseau’s mother died when he was young (see: early parental death and genius), and he was initially brought up by his father, a watchmaker. He left Geneva aged 16 and travelled around France, where he met his benefactress, the Baronnesse de Warens, who gave him the education that turned him into a philosopher. In 1742, he connected with Denis Diderot, and the two formed the core of an intellectual group called the 'Philosophes'. (Ѻ)
Influenced | By
Influenced (Ѻ) by: Voltaire, John Locke, Charles Montesquieu, Thomas Hobbes, Denis Diderot, Plato, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, Niccolo Machiavelli, Benedict Spinoza, Michel Montaigne, Jean d’Alembert, Gottfried Leibniz, Hugo Grotius, Epicurus, Etienne Condillac, Samuel Pufendorf, Samuel Richardson, Nicolas Malebranche, Louise d’Epinay, Ibn Tufail, Jean Burlamaqui, and Jean Bareyrac.
Influence | On
Influenced (Ѻ): Marquis de Sade, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Maximilien Robespierre, David Hume, Georg Hegel, Thomas Paine, Maria Montessori, Jacques Derrida, Johann Fichte, Louis Saint-Just, Leo Strauss, and Louis Althusser.
Quotes | On
The following are relevant quotes on Rosseau:
“Rousseau, whose survey of human nature often strangely and suspiciously resembles that of Hobbes, advocated—in some moods at least—a return to nature. Rousseau’s ‘nature’ was a pig-sty, but Hobbes’s state of nature was something far worse than that.”
— Pogson Smith (c.1895), “The Philosophy of Hobbes” [4]
“But if we must abandon the idea of an original social instinct uniting men, then the only theory of the state that seems to be left is that of which among the moderns Hobbes is the keenest and most important representative. Instead of seeing society as the result of an instinct of "sympathy," we must regard it as a product of the sheer instinct for power. It is based on power, and only by power can it be preserved. Rousseau went indeed so far in his attack on Grotius and the Encyclopedists as to hail Hobbes as his ally against them. For a time, he saw in Hobbes the great political realist, and as such he preferred Hobbes to all those who have painted human society in charming colors. In one of his essays he called Hobbes one of the greatest philosophers and one of the most eminent men of genius.”
— Ernst Cassirer (c.1940), Rousseau-Kant-Goethe (Ѻ)
“The middle of the eighteenth century witnessed the first powerful revolt against cultural tradition, which is marked by Rousseau. This tradition was restarted by universal genius Goethe. But it was restarted for the last time. Goethe had not been succeeded by another universal genius.”
— Ernst Curtis (1949), “The Medieval Bases of Western Thought” [2]
“Rousseau’s ‘I felt before I thought’, which opposed Descartes ‘I think therefore I am’, brings a new idea, which is feelings may lead to ‘truth’.”
— Abdeslam Badre (2006), on romanticism (Ѻ)
Quotes | By
The following are noted Rousseau quotes:
“Man is born free, but everywhere in chains.”
— Jean Rousseau (1762), The Social Contract [3]
“I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature.”
— Jean Rousseau (c.1770) (Ѻ)
References
1. (a) Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. (1762). The Social Contract: Principles of the Political Right (§5, pg. 13). Publisher.
(b) Zucker, Morris. (1945). The Philosophy of American History: The Historical Field Theory (pg. 64). Arnold-Howard Publishing Co.
2. Curtis, Ernst. (1949). “The Medieval Bases of Western Thought”, Journal.
3. Rueff, Jacques. (1922). From the Physical to the Social Sciences: Introduction to a Study of Economic and Ethical Theory (Des Sciences Physiques Aux Sciences Morales) (translator: Herman Green) (Introduction: Herman Oliphant and Abram Hewitt) (pg. xx). Johns Hopkins Press, 1929.
4. (a) Smith, Pogson W.G. (c.1895). “The Philosophy of Hobbes” (Ѻ), in: Leviathan. Publisher, 1909.
(b) Hobbes, Thomas. (1651). Leviathan (pg. xix). Barnes & Nobel, 2004.
