Philosophy of Rousseau http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau
[edit <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean-Jacques_Rousseau&action=edit §ion=3> ] Nature vs. society Rousseau saw a fundamental divide between society <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society> and human nature <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature> . Rousseau contended that man <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humankind> was good by nature, a "noble savage <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage> " when in the state of nature <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature> (the state of all the "other animals", and the condition humankind was in before the creation of civilization <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization> and society <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society> ), but is corrupted by society. He viewed society as artificial and held that the development of society, especially the growth of social interdependence, has been inimical to the well-being of human beings. Society's negative influence on otherwise virtuous men centers, in Rousseau's philosophy, on its transformation of amour de soi <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amour_de_soi&action=edit> , a positive self-love, into amour-propre <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amour-propre&action=edit> , or pride <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride> . Amour de soi represents the instictive human desire for self-preservation <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-preservation> , combined with the human power of reason <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason> . In contrast, amour-propre is not natural but artificial and forces man to compare himself to others, thus creating unwarranted fear <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear> and allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others. Rousseau was not the first to make this distinction; it had been invoked by, among others, Vauvenargues <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauvenargues> . In "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences" Rousseau argued that the arts and sciences had not been beneficial to humankind, because they were advanced not in response to human needs but as the result of pride and vanity <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity> . Moreover, the opportunities they created for idleness and luxury contributed to the corruption of man. He proposed that the progress of knowledge <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge> had made governments <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government> more powerful <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_%28sociology%29> and had crushed individual <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual> liberty <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty> . He concluded that material progress had actually undermined the possibility of sincere friendship <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship> , replacing it with jealousy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jealousy> , fear <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear> and suspicion <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suspicion_%28emotion%29&action=ed it> . His subsequent Discourse on Inequality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_on_Inequality> , tracked the progress and degeneration of mankind from a primitive state of nature <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature> to modern society. He suggested that the earliest human beings were isolated semi-apes who were differentiated from animals by their capacity for free will and their perfectibility. He also argued that these primitive humans were possessed of a basic drive to care for themselves and a natural disposition to compassion <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion> or pity. As humans were forced to associate together more closely, by the pressure of population growth, they underwent a psychological transformation and came to value the good opinion of others as an essential component of their own well being. Rousseau associated this new self-awareness with a golden age of human flourishing. However, the development of agriculture and metallurgy, private property and the division of labour <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_labour> led to increased interdependence and inequality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality> . The resulting state of conflict led Rousseau to suggest that the first state was invented as a kind of social contract <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract> made at the suggestion of the rich and powerful. This original contract was deeply flawed as the wealthiest and most powerful members of society tricked the general population, and so cemented inequality as a permanent feature of human society. Rousseau's own conception of the social contract can be understood as an alternative to this fraudulent form of association. At the end of the Discourse on Inequality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_on_Inequality> , Rousseau explains how the desire to have value in the eyes of others, which originated in the golden age, comes to undermine personal integrity and authenticity in a society marked by interdependence, hierarchy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy> , and inequality. [edit <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean-Jacques_Rousseau&action=edit §ion=4> ] Political theory A 1766 portrait of Rousseau by Allan Ramsay <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Allan_Ramsay_003.jpg> Enlarge <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Allan_Ramsay_003.jpg> A 1766 portrait of Rousseau by Allan Ramsay <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Ramsay> [edit <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean-Jacques_Rousseau&action=edit §ion=5> ] The Social Contract Perhaps Rousseau's most important work is The Social Contract <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Contract> , which outlines the basis for a legitimate political order. Published in 1762 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1762> it became one of the most influential works of abstract political thought <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Political_thought&action=edit> in the Western <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Culture> tradition. Building on his earlier work, such as the Discourse on Inequality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_on_Inequality> Rousseau claimed that the state of nature eventually degenerates into a brutish condition without law <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law> or morality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality> , at which point the human race must adopt institutions of law or perish. In the degenerate phase of the state of nature, man is prone to be in frequent competition <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition> with his fellow men while at the same time becoming increasingly dependent on them. This double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom> . According to Rousseau, by joining together through the social contract <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract> and abandoning their claims of natural right <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_right> , individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_will> of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law> . Whilst Rousseau argues that sovereignty <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty> should thus be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between sovereign and government <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government> . The government is charged with implementing and enforcing the general will and is composed of a smaller group of citizens <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens> , known as magistrates <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magistrates> . Rousseau was bitterly opposed to the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly. Rather, they should make the laws directly. It has been argued that this would prevent Rousseau's ideal state being realized in a large society, though in modern times, communication <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication> may have advanced to the point where this is no longer the case. Much of the subsequent controversy about Rousseau's work has hinged on disagreements concerning his claims that citizens constrained to obey the general will <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_will> are thereby rendered free. [edit <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean-Jacques_Rousseau&action=edit §ion=6> ] Education Rousseau set out his views on education in Emile, a semi-fictitious work detailing the growth of a young boy of that name, presided over by Rousseau himself. He brings him up in the countryside, where, he believes, humans are most naturally suited, rather than in a city, where we only learn bad habits, both physical and intellectual. The aim of education, Rousseau says, is to learn how to live, and this is accomplished by following a guardian who can point the way to good living. The growth of a child is divided into three sections, first to the age of about 12, when calculating and complex thinking is not possible, and children according to his deepest conviction live like animals. Second, from 10 or 12 to about 15, when reason starts to develop, and finally from the age of 15 onwards, when the child develops into an adult. At this point, Emile finds a young woman to complement him. The book is based on Rousseau's ideals of healthy living. The boy must work out how to follow his social instincts and be protected from the vices of urban individualism and self-consciousness. [edit <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean-Jacques_Rousseau&action=edit §ion=7> ] Religion Rousseau was most controversial in his own time for his views on religion <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion> . His view that man is good by nature conflicts with the original sin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin> doctrine by Paul of Tarsus <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_of_Tarsus> and his theology of nature <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theology_of_nature&action=edit> expounded by the Savoyard Vicar in Emile <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile> led to the condemnation of the book in both Calvinist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinist> Geneva <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva> and Catholic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic> Paris <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris> . In the Social Contract <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Contract> he claims that true followers of Jesus would not make good citizens. This was one of the reasons for the book's condemnation in Geneva <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva> . Rousseau attempted to defend himself against critics of his religious views in his Letter to Christophe de Beaumont <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe_de_Beaumont> (the Archbishop of Paris). [edit <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean-Jacques_Rousseau&action=edit §ion=8> ] Legacy Rousseau's ideas were influential at the time of the French Revolution <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution> although since popular sovereignty was exercised through representatives rather than directly, it cannot be said that the Revolution was in any sense an implementation of Rousseau's ideas. Subsequently, writers such as Benjamin Constant <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Constant> and Hegel <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegel> sought to blame the excesses of the Revolution and especially the Reign of Terror <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror> on Rousseau, but the justice of their claims is a matter of controversy. Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private property <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property> , and therefore is often considered a forebearer of modern socialism <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism> and communism <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism> (see Karl Marx <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx> , though Marx rarely mentions Rousseau in his writings). Rousseau also questioned the assumption that the will of the majority <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Majority_%28electoral%29&action=e dit> is always correct. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority (see democracy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy> ). One of the primary principles of Rousseau's political philosophy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_philosophy> is that politics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics> and morality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality> should not be separated. When a state <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State> fails to act in a moral fashion, it ceases to function in the proper manner and ceases to exert genuine authority over the individual. The second important principle is freedom, which the state is created to preserve. Rousseau's ideas about education <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education> have profoundly influenced modern educational theory. In Emile he differentiates between healthy and "useless" crippled children. Only a healthy child can be the rewarding object of any educational work. He minimizes the importance of book-learning, and recommends that a child's emotions <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion> should be educated before his reason. He placed a special emphasis on learning by experience <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience> . John Darling's 1994 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994> book Child-Centred Education and its Critics argues that the history of modern educational theory <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Educational_theory&action=edit> is a series of footnotes to Rousseau. In his main writings Rousseau identifies nature with the primitive state of savage man. Later he took nature to mean the spontaneity of the process by which man builds his egocentric, instinct based character and his little world. Nature thus signifies interiority and integrity <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity> , as opposed to that imprisonment and enslavement which society imposes in the name of progressive emancipation from coldhearted brutality. Hence, to go back to nature means to restore to man the forces of this natural process, to place him outside every oppressing bond of society and the prejudices of civilization. It is this idea that made his thought particularly important in Romanticism <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism> , though Rousseau himself is sometimes regarded as a figure of The Enlightenment <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enlightenment> _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
