Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Lecture 1

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Jean-Jacques RousseauLecture 1

• PHIL 1003
• 2008-09

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

• 1712 born in city of Geneva
• Son of a watchmaker
• Mother dies at his birth raised by father
• No formal education
• Apprenticed to an engraver, but escaped
• Wandering life until his 30s
• 1750-62 writes major works
• 1762 goes into exile to escape prosecution for
  ideas on religion and politics
• 1767 returns to France incognito
• 1778 dies near Paris

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Rousseaus major works
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A philosophical life

• the personal is political

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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.

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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 Ermenonville, Ile de France.
• Re-interred with Voltaire in Paris (Pantheon)
  during French Revolution.

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Montmorency, France Rousseaus escape to
Yverdon (Switz.)
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One of many famous portraits of Rousseau studying
nature
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1750 Landmark Year

• Vision on the road to Vincennes
• question for prize essay whether the
  restoration of the Sciences and Arts has
  contributed to the purification of morals.
• 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).

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Discourse on the Origins

• Of Inequality among Men
• (1754)

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Dedication to Geneva

• Citizen of Geneva (DSA and DOI title pages)
• Geneva republic (vs absolutist France)
• Virtuous, vs Paris
• Advocates elected magistracy of merit (vs
  purchased offices in France)
• similarities to Chinese selection system for
  officials
• uses elections of the best and most virtuous
  instead of exams (CUP ed. 1997, 117 11)
• Cf. to Athenian rotation system.

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Paris versus Geneva

• Paris (modern Athens)
• Corrupt
• Unnatural
• Weak
• Citizens dominated by opinions of others
• Complex and large officials, taxes, rules
• Concern w/ status
• 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
• Rousseaus ideal.

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Discourse thought experiment

• A meditation, not a fact-finding mission
• Conducted during long, solitary walks in the
  woods.
• hypothetical and conditional reasonings
• elucidate the Nature of things rather than
  show their genuine origin (132, 6).
• Let us begin by setting aside all the facts.

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DOI Frontispiece what does it mean?
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The Philosophers who have examined the
foundations of society have all felt the
necessity of going back as far as the state of
Nature,

• But none of them has reached it (132).
• None of them has stripped man naked.

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All that is challenging in The Social Contract

• had previously appeared in the Discourse on
  Inequality (Confs.,
• Bk 9).

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Hobbes and Locke on S of N

• Hobbes
• man is by nature fearful, contentious
• state of nature war of all against all.
• Locke
• man is by nature capable of sociability before he
  enters into society,
• e.g. contract b/w a Swiss and an Indian in the
  woods of America
• protection of property is reason to form
  governments.

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Rousseau vs Hobbes and Locke

• Both are wrong
• Man is naturally peaceable and isolated
• Man is not naturally sociable
• he must become so, through a long and complicated
  development
• Inequality, exploitation and arbitrary rule
  outcome.

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Where does inequality come from?

• Is it natural?
• Unnatural?

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What is inequality?

• Physical,
• by nature very slight.
• Political
• Very great
• caused by amour-propre vanity, human
  institutions, e.g. property this is mine
• social problems resulting from inequality
• Few rule many i.e. rich rule poor
• Exploitation of most of humanity by the few.

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Once Peoples are accustomed to Masters,

• they can no longer do without them (CUP ed.
  1997, 115, 6).

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To be and to appear became two entirely
different things,

• and from this distinction arose ostentatious
  display, deceitful cunning, and all the vices
  that follow in their wake (DOI, pt. II, par. 27).

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Savage vs social man

• the Savage lives within himself social man,
  always outside himself, is capable of living only
  in the opinion of others and derives the
  sentiment of his own existence solely from their
  judgment (DOI, II.57).

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We live in the opinion of others

• Various enslavements
• We acquire status items
• Watches
• Bags
• Phones
• Spend money we dont have
• Run to our chains (jobs? bank loans?) so we can
  have enough money for status items!

• Prada bags

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Do we really need these bags?

• man, who had been free and independent, is
  nowsubjugated by a multitude of new needs
• rich, he needs others services poor, he
  needs their help
• Lawsgave the weak new fetters and the rich new
  forcesthey transformed a skillful usurpation
  into an irrevocable right (II.33).

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Living in the opinion of othersWomens fashion,
reign of Louis XVI
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Whats left? Empty appearances!

• everything being reduced to appearances,
  everything becomes factitious and playacting
• we have nothing more than a deceiving and
  frivolous exterior, honor without virtue, reason
  without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness
  (DOI, II.57).

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Big Hair, 18th century-style
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What kinds of inequality does this picture
illustrate?
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We enable our own oppression

• Citizens let themselves be oppressed only so far
  as they are swept up by blind ambition andcome
  to hold Domination dearer than independence, and
  consent to bear chains so that they might impose
  chains in turn II.51.

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Civilized misery

• the Citizen, forever active, sweats, scurries,
  constantly agonizeshe works to the death, even
  rushes toward it in order to be in a position to
  liveHe courts the great whom he hates, and the
  rich whom he despises he spares nothing to
  attain the honor of serving them (II.57).

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The final word on inequality

• Prelude to Marx
• it is manifestly against the Law of Nature,
  however defined, that...a handful of people
  abound in superfluities while the starving
  multitude lacks necessities (II.58).

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Rousseaus first tomb Ermenonville, France