Rousseau Essay

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Kam Mr.Boni European History 1/18/2014 “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”. Prominent, influential, relevant and most important of all as human as they come, Jean Jacques Rousseau was truthfully, brilliant. Rousseau was born in Geneva Switzerland to a watchmaker in 1712, lacking of a formal education his father taught him to read, exposed him to literature and he managed to educate himself while living with Madame Louise de Warens,in the kingdom of Sardinia, modern Italy. Jeans childhood was far from easy “His autobiographical Les Confessions (1783) offers a thorough account of his turbulent life in her household, where he spent eight years studying nature and music, and reading English, German, and French philosophers. He also pursued the study of mathematics and Latin and enjoyed the theater and opera” (Hager 1). After leaving de Warrens in 1744, Rousseau eventually made his way to Paris, where he befriended French philosopher Denis Diderot who actually invited him to contribute to the Encyclopedie a major work of the enlightenment period, which he did, Rousseau wrote articles on music and political theories. Then in 1750 he wrote A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts. Where he claimed Human beings were naturally good, he argued; it was only the corrupt institutions of civilization that led them to do evil. Rousseau continuously returned to that theme in his subsequent writings in fact he stated A new-born he thought was intrinsically perfect: all society could do was to limit his views and maim his mind. Hence, the more civilized, the worse. A savage was nearer perfection than a philosopher. Yet he was a philosopher but Rousseau's own view of philosophy and philosophers was firmly negati... ... middle of paper ... ...cess can be measured easily by the extent to which its population thrives. Still we know Rousseau was far from perfect, he like other philosophes of his time where not strong feminists. Amazingly as radical as he was he took a conservative view on women arguing “it is a part of the order of nature that the women obey the man” in his Emile. Yet can he be blamed? His personal life was a mess; he sired many children that he abandoned, held great hostility towards the society he lived in, engaged in numerous affairs and even had a long-term relationship with an illiterate servant named Therese Le Vasseur.Even through his turbulent life Rousseau found a passion in philosophy and ended up living out his final years in relative quiet and comfort with Therese le vasseur who he married. Rousseau died on July 2, 1778 on the estate of his patron, the Marquis de Girardin.

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