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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1788)Get Rating Widget!

Overall Rating:3.35 based on 26 ratings
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French philosopher and writer who held that humanity is essentially good but corrupted by society. His most famous works include "The Social Contract" and the novel "Émile" (both 1762). Quote: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." (Add picture)

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Loerke (53)
11/16/2008
Most people have got Rousseau completely wrong -- such as the commenter below who quotes the line about stupidity which was actually a response to his first published work, which won a major prize (what was allegedly stupid in other words was that anyone would publish and praise him ...). Rousseau little ambition to make his dreams real. Even the city-states he loved to praise (essentially variations on "small is beautiful") refused to have him as a citizen. It's better to see him essentially as a master of prose who loved paradoxes, not as a philosopher. There is not much of a system in his philosophy, but he still has the ability to provoke us today: arguing with Rousseau is still the first thing a political thinker needs to do in shaping his or her view of what is possible.

  (3 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree)
DrEntropy (40)
03/06/2006
Had a good writing style and a lot of ideas, most of them bad. Rousseau's political and educational theories are completely impractical and have generally had a terrible influence on the course of human history. His work, especially towards the end of his life, reflected disenchantement with Enlightenment ideas of reason and progress. Like the Romantic movement in general, Rousseau's ideas may have had a positive influence on poetry, music, and painting; but they were pretty disastrous elsewhere.

  (3 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree)
JonTheMan (29)
11/15/2004
Provides compelling evidence in his origins of inequality of the perversion of the natural order created by the extreme centralization of the ownership of goods and also outlined the social contract providing a solid argument for a republican government in which the exploitation created by aristocracy and state would be dissuaded by the vigilance of the people. I often wonder, as Rousseau did, how indeed it is the natural order that a handful of men stuff themselves with superfluities while the starving crowds lack necessities.

  (2 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree)
CastleBee (89)
03/28/2001
Seems he got it backwards; humanity is essentially evil and therefore, society is corrupted. But then, I'm sure he didn't bother himself with things like the fall of man and the Bible. Proof though that simplicity REALLY does confound those who believe themselves to be wise.

  (5 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree)
Ruby (16)
03/27/2001
Became the prototype of generations of lefty intellectuals who -- afforded the luxuries of life via the virtues of others (the scientists who give us innovation, the parents that teach virtue, everyone who works hard at producing goods and services) -- creates a sensation by saying all those virtues (reason, etc.) are worthless. Frorm his ivory tower, he says that we should return to a state of nature, apart from the "chains" of modern life. I wish he would have just acted on it -- and gone into the woods to live like the unabomber -- than to have written his horrid books. I close with a quote from Jules Lemaitre who called Rousseau's book "Confessions" -- "one of the strongest proofs ever provided of human stupidity."

  (6 voted this helpful, 1 funny and 0 agree)
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