Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).

1st wave of pol philosophy : 1st stage of modernity

/ / . /
/ he is the essence of enlightenment - thinker of radical opposites/
Shocking writer for his age
The Classicism of the 18th century Enlightenment had its distinctive melancholy, already, reaching back in historical
fragments, broken remnants of Ancient forms, for inspiration to the modern task of freedom.

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Rousseau understood the most radical possibilities of freedom-in-transformation to take place in society, the site of
new and alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men. Rousseau described this as the
sacrifice of natural liberty for moral freedom, the freedom to act in unnatural ways
Rousseau attacks enlightenment
nature -civilisation
civilisation-morality
>liberty is a self enacting law
Rousseau alienation of natural self>
man is born free but then he changes.....acquisition of morality>the rational society commands self alienation>
but there is also instinctive goodness/compassion -against radical individualists
sentiment of existence =basic in all Rousseau =desire to preserve yourself>

Kant fan of Rousseau but

kant says rousseau is confused > morality cant have a basis in knowledge of nature of man a metaphysical concept
(materialism and spiritualism are wrong -both are dogmatic )
understanding prescribes nature and its laws/mind

> SUM
progress is really corruption
greater inequality protected by state
vanity +hypocrisy dont let us see human nature
Roussau =sos was state of nature in the past now degradation (innocence state that the romantics
promoted)

Rousseau = discourse of the art and science

1st discource on arts and sciences -have they contributed to moral progress?
According to him, they cover up our oppression 'Science-letters and arts =less despotic more powerful -have the

sense of freedom in them +make us love our slavery and fashion us into civilized people.
=They promote tyranny and disguise oppression
-->they create new needs and new things to be depended/new forms of dependence ==>form of degradation (not
progress)
Rousseau => criticism of enlightenment of luxury and economic relations
18th cent France => clergy, aristocracy, peasants (inequality )
(enlightenment disguised this inequality makes us not see it clearly)
->you would like to be like writer/philosopher ==>people will try to be sth they are not = performing for someone
else = promote dishonesty -in-authenticity
In the enlightement we get ==>
-aristocrats dont let people take our power and knowledge
clergy we need more religion
The cure is to give political power to people that have knowledge /learned men. You cant go backwards you cant
turn back after enlightement so we have to bring learned men into power. (He diagnoses the problem and gives
quickly the treatment.)

without some place from which you criticize you have no leverage for criticism
--you cant have an idea of corruption unless you have an idea of nature
Rousseau SOSS idea of the natural /the way of nature criticism of the modern

1) the desire of self preservation (take care f ourselves escape threat)

2)

natural not to want to see any other species with feelings suffer pity compassion = when u see sth suffer//////
pity precedes reflection its instinctive => doesnt depend on the status of the sufferer etc

>inequality makes us more distant creates separation (increase satisfaction when someone suffers)
inequality is increased by society people try to be someone else -

Part 2 = origins of society ==> we create a dynamic of inequality = by comparing ourselves to thers
we start to live together and then we start to want each other--> as we look at each other we begin to act for the others
(against natural) --- everyone want to look at everybody else =>fragmentation
then they change their attitude and begin to start to behave as those that we think are better
=vanity is born (want to be sth we are not) ==> as we become actors we think we need certain goods
dont see luxuries ==conveniences become needs (stop being enjoyable) --we are afraid of losing them but we are
not so happy when have them
>>we desire sth we get not pleasure from having + fear of losing <Increased vurnerability
Down the slippery slope of inequality + hypocrisy and vulnerability
STATE
the state is the guarantor of inequality rich people cant defend themselves and conceived this project (plot) to get
poor to defend property
inequality is built in the state = the state is there to guarantee preservation
against social contract theorists that said that we exchange part of our freedom for security ===> rouss say the
rich people need it to protect their property
rich people are so sensitive about their goods -vulnerable -have many to lose

=> what was a cool thing is now a necessity > we put feelings on our possessions>

I become more vulnerable with every necessity I acquire

State= A way for the rich to convince the poor to defend the rich's property Rich create an apparatus of
control to protect their staff--> we the poor want that life and that corrupts us because its not natural it
comes from our vanity
4)Natural love of freedom (everybody living under the government doent fight it but people risk their life
to protect their freedom > as animals that kill themselves when captured
- wealth itself doeant mean aanything to rich ...but are happy because poor people exist
rich value the things they enjoy only to the degree that the others are deprived of them
seeing the misery of the poor satisfies the rich!!!
criticizes society for creating that the conditions of vanity -sadism
sociable person lives on others /outside himself > bad
society =illegit =a violation of our physical state
--------0) Voltaires letter = said we cant go back roussau :P you are the hypocrite
(rousseau hated voltaire) "I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was
such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid
Rousseau = freedom =you obey a law that you give to yourself>if you think clearly you want to live in a world where
people obey the rules -decided to live ur life in accordance to your rules
kant--> people will learn gradually - let them learn We may see him as Kants inspiration
Reason enabled man to produce more t\ bare survival, giving rise to such corruptions as science and the arts, +,
private property: "The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, bethought himself of saying, This is mine,
and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society."
>>"With Rousseau the individual has no rights at all to deviate from the general will, so this democracy is compatible
with a complete absence of personal freedom. Here was the first formulation in Western philosophy of some of the
basic ideas underlying the great totalitarian movements of the 20th century, Communism and Fascismwhich
likewise claimed to represent the people, and to have mass support, and even to be democratic, while denying
individual rights; and which also allotted a key role to charismatic leaders; and which waged both hot and cold war
against the Anglo-Saxon democracies who based themselves on Lockean principles."
---------------------Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and On the Social Contract
opened its radical critique.
Bourgeois society came into full recognition with Rousseau
Hegel wrote: The principle of freedom dawned on the world in Rousseau.
Marx quoted Rousseau favorably that Whoever dares undertake to establish a peoples institutions must feel himself
capable of changing, as it were, human nature to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien
powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.
new modern concept of freedom found in Rousseau:
The principle of freedom and its corollary, perfectibility, . . . suggest that the possibilities for being human are both
multiple and, literally, endless.
. . . Contemporaries like Kant well understood the novelty and radical implications of Rousseaus new principle of
freedom [and] appreciated his unusual stress on history>>>
A new way of thinking about the human condition had appeared.

This new conception was found in Rousseau. Rousseau wrote that while animals were machines wound up for
functioning in a specific natural environment, humans could regard and reflect upon their own machinery and thus
change it. This was Rousseaus radical notion of perfectibility which was not in pursuit of an ideal of perfection but
rather open-ended in infinite adaptability.
Unlike animal species, humans could adapt themselves to live in any environment transforming as well their own
inner nature, giving rise to ever-new possibilities.
This was the new conception of freedom, not freedom to be according to a fixed natural or Divine form,
but rather freedom to transform and realize new potential possibilities, to become new and different, other than what
we were before.
On the Social Contract, society exhibited a general will, not reducible to its individual members: more than the sum
of its parts.
Not Hobbess Leviathan, but rather a second nature, a rebirth of potential, both collectively and individually.
Human nature found the realization of its freedom in society, but humans were free to develop and transform
themselves, for good or for ill.
For Rousseau and the 18th century revolutionaries he inspired, to bring society closer to the state of nature, then,
was to allow humanitys potential to be better realized.
But, first, society had to be clear about its aims, in practice as well as in theory. Rousseau was the first to articulate
this new, modern task of social freedom.
The question Rousseau poses, then, is the speculative or dialectical relation of theory and practice, today.
Rousseaus philosophy on the original nature of man is predicated on two principles,
a humans interest in his self-preservation a
nd a natural repugnance to seeing any sentient being, especially our fellow man, perish or suffer.
Society corrupts these two principles. Rousseau doesnt think a man in his natural state would have ever committed
suicide or harmed himself intentionally in any way, but he observes that people in the midst of enlightenment, with so
much free time that they have the luxury of deep thought, sometimes commit suicide or harm themselves. He
develops the idea that humans have lost much of their pity and compassion even more. The formation of societies and
economic classes make humans jealous or scornful of each other. The wealthy value the poor or working class only as
another piece of property, and the working class feels only jealousy and animosity toward the wealthy. This separation
of humanity engenders hatred and a feeling of satisfaction at the misfortune of a person in a different class. He says,
Natural inequality in the human species must increase as a result of instituted inequality.
hundred years before Darwin wrote his origin of the species, and in many cases it appears that Darwin had borrowed
from this text, however this is not meant to be a scientific text but rather a political discourse.
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"While the state can compel no one to believe, it can banish, not for impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly loving
the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, his life to his duty [italics mine. Unsurprisingly, a picture of Rousseau hung in Kants
study, directly above his desk]. If, after having publicly recognised these dogmas, a person acts as if he does not believe them, he
should be put to death."

MINUS POINTS /CRITIQUE

noble savage.
In Rousseau's mind the savage lives in a state of simple grace. He is not educated enough to feel the finer emotions of
love, desire and loss and therefore lives happily in his own way, unknowing and uncaring of the woes of modern
society.

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J S Mill

 Henry Mill -
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- . The Subjection of Women (1861)
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>System of Logic, 1843; re-vitalized the study of logic,
>Principles of Political Economy in 1848; this defined the orthodox form of liberal principles for the next quarter
century.