Rousseau, a Wandering Philosopher

What a sixteen-year-old Jean Jacques Rousseau thought as he left the city of Bossey cannot be known. One would wonder if he could have thought that his work would be read in schools three centuries later.

One could entertain that he did. His autobiographical work Confessions opens with the words “I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined after having read this work.” (Rousseau). This man’s ego, at least, was impressive indeed.

Rousseau was born in 1712 in Geneva. His childhood was certainly turbulent beginning with his mother’s death just nine days after his birth. His father educated him on things such as “the inculcation of republican patriotism and the reading of classical authors such as Plutarch who dealt with the Roman republic” until the age of ten when his father went into exile from Geneva in order to avoid arrest. He was placed in the care of a pastor in the nearby city of Bossey but left at the age of sixteen. (Bertram).

Under the influence of a Roman Catholic convert noblewoman, Francoise-Louise de la Tour, Baronne de Warens, Rousseau converted to Roman Catholicism in Turin, April 1728. He spent some time training to become a Catholic priest before taking on a career as a traveling musician. In 1731, that stage of his career ended when he returned to Mme de Warens at Chambéry to become her lover and then her household manager. He stayed with the noblewoman until 1740, when he left for Lyon to become a tutor. (Bertram).

In 1745, Rousseau met Thérèse Levasseur, who became his lover and wife. Rousseau claimed that she bore him five children, who were all left at the foundling hospital shortly after birth. Intellectual rivals such as Voltaire would later use this against him. (Bertram).

Rousseau’s philosophy and views on the issue of nature and culture came to notice when he entered his Discourse on the Sciences and Arts into an essay competition held by the Academy of Dijon, taking first prize. He ended the work with “Let us learn to be satisfied with that, and without envying the glory of those famous men who are immortalized in the republic of letters, let us try to set between them and us that glorious distinction which people made long ago between two great peoples: one knew how to speak well; the other how to act well.” Rousseau’s First Discourse, as it is now known, controversially claimed that humans were naturally good, but society forced them to corruption.

He reconverted to Calvinism in 1754, regaining Genevan citizenship. In 1755, he submitted another work to an essay contest of the Academy of Dijon, titled Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. Within, he is quoted speaking to the reader: “you shall hear your history such as I think I have read it, not in books composed by those like you, for they are liars, but in the book of nature which never lies.” The work focused upon social, artificial inequality as opposed to physical, natural inequality. In his eyes, the rich engineered society to keep for themselves the lion’s share while the poor remain in squalor.

Later works included Emile and The Social Contract, but they “were condemned in both Paris and in Geneva on grounds of religious heterodoxy.” He fled to Switzerland to avoid arrest, later relocating to England in 1766. England saw escalating mental instability and the beginning of Confessions. It saw completion after a return to France in 1767. He died in 1778. (Bertram).

Works Cited

Bertram, Christopher. "Jean Jacques Rousseau." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. N.p., 27 Sept. 2012. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques. The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Gutenberg Project. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.

---. Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Gutenberg Project. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.

---. A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of The Inequality Among Mankind. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Gutenberg Project. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.