Jean-Jacques was born on June 28, 1712 in Geneva. Since childhood, in his biography, Jean Jacques Rousseau was fond of reading books. His mother died in childbirth, and when his father married again, Jean-Jacques was sent to study with a notary, and later - to an engraver.
In March 1728 he left Geneva. His further education was not stable. First he studied at the monastery of Turin, then studied, working as a lackey in the house of aristocrats. After his education, Jacques Rousseau received at the seminary. For several years Rousseau traveled around Switzerland, France, mostly on foot. I started working as a mentor, teacher, secretary, but could not find a decent job. In the meantime, he was composing music.
Due to material shortage, he married, but was not happily married. Having received a prize from the Dijon Academy in 1749, he began to work fruitfully, compose music, rewrite sheet music. He changed his behavior, moving away from society, settled separately from his wife. Then Rousseau wrote works: "New Eloise" (published in 1761), "Emile", "Social contract". For the philosophy of "Emile" was convicted by the Paris Parliament, but fled to Switzerland. From there he moved again due to the condemnation of his works.
After returning to Geneva, relations between Rousseau and Voltaire worsened due to the new work of Rousseau, "A Letter on Spectacles."
In the biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a period of flight began again: this time he took refuge in England. Later, returning to France, he was in a serious mental state. Rousseau died on July 2, 1778.
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Introduction
I. J.-J. Rousseau on freedom and inequality
II. The theory of social contract by J.-J. Rousseau
III. J.-J. Rousseau on legislative and executive power
Conclusion
Literature
Introduction
Jean-Jacques Rousseau occupies a special place among the outstanding thinkers on the eve of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789-1794. Enlightener and romantic, individualist and collectivist, Rousseau has become the object of many studies and various interpretations. As an eminent representative of the French Enlightenment of the 18th century, he commands respect or admiration for just the opposite reasons. For some, he is a theorist of sentimentalism, a new and progressive trend in literature for that time; for others, he is a defender of the complete fusion of the individual with social life, an opponent of the gap between personal and collective interests; someone considers him a liberal, and someone a theoretician of socialism; some take him for an enlightener, but for others he is an anti-enlightener. But for everyone, he is the first major theorist of modern pedagogy.
A French philosopher, moralist and political thinker, a richly gifted and full of contradictions figure, J.-J. Rousseau expressed the desire for the renewal of society, and, at the same time, conservative moods, desire and at the same time fear of a radical revolution, nostalgia for primitive life - and fear before barbarism. [p.326, 6]
Rousseau's socio-economic and democratic ideas received an enthusiastic assessment in many countries where the struggle against the Middle Ages, feudal enslavement, and absolute monarchies developed.
Rousseau's literary activity was very fruitful. He wrote a number of essays on philosophy, sociology, pedagogy, as well as works of art.
Our attention is drawn to the works in which Rousseau tried to set out the history of the origin and development of inequality, the emergence of political societies and the abuses that they open up to the extent to which all this can be deduced from human nature, in the light of reason alone and regardless of the sacred dogmas that give supreme authority sanctioned by divine right.
This work examines the social and political and legal views of J.-J. Russo, set out by him in his most significant works - "Discourse on the arts and sciences", "Discourse on the origin and grounds of inequality between people" (1754), " On the Social Contract, or Principles of Political Law "(1762)," On Political Economy "(1755)," Judgment of Eternal Peace "(1782).
Based on the study of research by political scientists, philosophers, sociologists J.Reale, D. Antiseri, H.N. Momdzhyan, P.S. Gurevich, V.I. Stolyarov, M.A.Vasilik, M.S. Vershinin and others. analysis of legal, political, philosophical concepts of J.-J. Rousseau.
The first chapter reveals the concept of egalitarianism, internal differentiations and distinctive features of Rousseau's ideas in relation to freedom, the history of the origin and development of inequality, and private property.
The second chapter is devoted to the theory of social contract by J.-J. Rousseau, in which the French educator developed the idea of the natural origin of the state, substantiated the system of democratic rights.
The third chapter examines Rousseau's doctrine of law as an expression of the general will and of legislative power as the prerogative of inalienable popular sovereignty.
In the conclusion, the main conclusions about the political theory of J.-J. Rousseau are presented.
I... J.-J. Rousseau on freedom and inequality
In his works, J.-J. Rousseau puts forward the concept of a natural person - wholesome, kind, biologically healthy, morally honest and just. The natural state, not historical reality, has become a working hypothesis that Rousseau derives from the depths of his thoughts, wanting to understand what part of this human wealth was suppressed or extinguished in the process of the historical development of society. [p.152, 5]
In the natural state, according to Rousseau, there is no private property, everyone is free and equal. Inequality here is initially only physical, due to the natural differences of people: “... inequality is barely noticeable in the natural state and its influence there is almost negligible,
... it arises and grows in connection with the consistent development of the human mind. " [p.235, 3]
With the emergence of private property and social inequality, which contradicted natural equality, a struggle begins between the rich and the poor. “I notice a twofold inequality in the human race: one, which I will call natural or physical, since it is established by nature, consists in the difference in the age of health, bodily strength and mental or mental qualities. The other can be moral or political, since it depends on a kind of contract and is established or at least made legal with the consent of the people. It consists in various privileges that some enjoy to the detriment of others, for example, that some are richer, respected and powerful than others, or even make them obey themselves ... ”. [p.422, 9]
Speaking of freedom and equality, Rousseau primarily means freedom from feudal enslavement and the equalization of citizens before the law. But unlike many other representatives of the anti-feudal movement, he kind of guesses that freedom and equality can become a reality as a result of radical transformations not only in the field of legal relations, but also in the socio-economic sphere. Hence, Rousseau's keen interest in the principle of private property, with the emergence of which he associates the disappearance of the initial equality and purity of public mores: property are inseparable companions of emerging inequality. " [p.225, 3]
Inequality, almost insignificant in the natural state, increases and grows depending on the development of our abilities and the success of the human mind and becomes, finally, lasting and legitimate due to the emergence of property and laws. “If we follow the progress of inequality in connection with these various upheavals, we will see that the emergence of laws and property rights was the starting point of this progress, the establishment of the magistracy was the second, and the third, and last, was the change of lawful power based on arbitrariness; so that the distinction between rich and poor was legitimized in the first era, the distinction between strong and weak in the second, and in the third, the distinction between master and slave. This is the last stage of inequality, the redistribution to which all the others lead, unless new upheavals completely destroy government or bring it closer to a legitimate structure. " [With. 426, 9]
Following the destruction of equality, according to Rousseau, "the most terrible turmoil" followed. The way out of this situation, inspired by the arguments of the rich and at the same time conditioned by the vital interests of all, consisted in an agreement on the creation of state power and laws to which everyone would obey. However, having lost their natural freedom, the poor did not acquire political freedom. The state and laws created by agreement "put new fetters on the weak and gave new strength to the rich, irrevocably destroyed natural freedom, forever established the law of property and inequality, and for the benefit of a few ambitious people have since then doomed the entire human race to labor, slavery and poverty." [p.425, 9]
The civil society that replaced the "natural state" was a complete denial of the previous stage of historical development. In the new society, the original equality of people disappeared, the poor and the rich, the subjects and the lords appeared. In civil society, the minority got the opportunity to live at the expense of the hard and humiliating labor of the conquered people. Inequality of private property, supplemented by political inequality, led, according to Rousseau, ultimately to absolute inequality under despotism, when in relation to the despot everyone is equal in their slavery and lawlessness.
How did this dramatic transition in human history come about? Rousseau did not and could not give a scientific answer to this question. It is significant, however, that he still looks for the main reason for the historical leap in the economic sphere, in the fact of the emergence of private property. [With. 137, 13]
The dominant feudal form of property became the subject of Rousseau's fierce attacks. Limited by the conditions and concepts of time, he could not rise to the level of demanding the complete elimination of all private property - this is a prerequisite for consistent freedom and equality. Rousseau was content only with the petty-bourgeois principle of egalitarianism, that is, with the requirement to endow all citizens with a more or less equal share of private property. These were utopian dreams, but we must not forget that at one time these dreams were of a progressive nature, expressed protest against feudalism and to some extent foreshadowed the idea of public ownership of tools and means of production, the destruction on this basis of all forms of enslavement of man by man. [p.132, 13]
II... The theory of social contract by J.-J. Rousseau
“Man is born to be free, and yet everywhere he is in chains,” - with these words opens Rousseau's treatise “On the Social Contract”. To free a person and return him freedom is the goal of the French philosopher. The new model of society is based on the voice of consciousness of the public person. “The transition from a natural state to a social one makes a very significant change in a person, replacing instincts in his behavior with justice and giving his actions previously absent moral ties. Only from this moment on, a person who until then only cared about himself, submitting to the physical impulses of satisfying hunger, thirst, etc., will act on the basis of other principles and, before following inclinations, listen to the voice of duty and reason. " The principle of historical rebirth, according to Rousseau, is not an abstract will, the keeper of all rights, or pure reason, alien to the confusion of passions, or an individualistic view of man. The principle that legitimizes power and guarantees social transformation is the common will of the people, faithful to the common good. [p.151, 5]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (fr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau; June 28, 1712, Geneva - July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, near Paris) - French philosopher, writer, thinker of the Enlightenment. He studied the direct form of government of the people by the state - direct democracy, which is used to this day, for example, in Switzerland. Musicologist, composer and botanist.
Franco-Swiss by origin, later for the idealization of the republican order of his homeland known as the "Citizen of Geneva", "defender of liberties and rights" (A. Pushkin) Rousseau was a native of Protestant Geneva, which preserved until the XVIII century. its strictly Calvinistic and municipal spirit.
Mother, Suzanne Bernard, granddaughter of a Geneva pastor, died in childbirth.
Father - Isaac Russo (1672-1747), watchmaker and dance teacher, was acutely worried about the loss of his wife.
Jean-Jacques was the beloved child in the family, from the age of seven he read with his father until dawn "Astrea" and biographies. Imagining himself as an ancient hero Scsevola, he burned his hand over the brazier.
Due to an armed attack on a fellow citizen, his father, Isaac, was forced to flee to a neighboring canton and there he entered into a second marriage. Jean-Jacques, left in Geneva under the care of his maternal uncle, spent 1723-1724 in the Protestant boarding house Lambercier, then was apprenticed to a notary, and in 1725 to an engraver. During this time he read a lot, even while working, for which he was subjected to harsh treatment. As he writes in his book Confessions, because of this, he is used to lying, pretending, stealing.
Leaving the city on Sundays, he returned more than once when the gates were already locked, and he had to spend the night in the open air. At the age of 16, on March 14, 1728, he decided to leave the city.
Outside the gates of Geneva, the Catholic Savoy began - the priest of a neighboring village invited him to convert to Catholicism and gave him a letter in Vevey, to Madame Françoise Louise de Varane (Warens, nee de la Tour du Pil; March 31, 1699 - July 29, 1762). She was a young woman from a wealthy family in the canton of Vaud, who upset her fortune with industrial enterprises, abandoned her husband and moved to Savoy. For the adoption of Catholicism, she received an allowance from the king. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was released into the street.
He entered an aristocratic house as a lackey, where he was treated with sympathy: the son of the count, the abbot, began to teach him Italian and read with him. Having met with a rogue from Geneva, Rousseau left Turin with him, without thanking his benefactor.
He reappeared in Annecy with Madame de Varane, who left him with her and became his "mother." She taught him to write correctly, speak the language of educated people and, as far as he was susceptible to this, behave in a secular manner. But the "mother" was only 30 years old; she was completely devoid of moral principles and in this respect had the most harmful influence on Rousseau. Taking care of his future, she placed Rousseau in seminary, and then sent him to study with an organist, whom he soon abandoned and returned to Annecy, from where Madame de Varane left, meanwhile, to Paris.
For more than two years, Rousseau wandered around Switzerland, enduring every need. Once he was even in Paris, which he did not like. He made his transitions on foot, spending the night in the open air, but he was not burdened by this, enjoying nature. In the spring of 1732, Rousseau again became a guest of Madame de Varane; his place was taken by the young Swiss, Ana, which did not prevent Rousseau from remaining a member of the friendly trio.
In his "Confession" he described with the most passionate colors his then love. After Anet's death, he remained alone with Madame de Varane until 1737, when she sent him to be treated in Montpellier. On his return he found his benefactress near the town of Chambery, where she rented a farm at Les Charmettes; its new "factotum" was the young Swiss Vintsinried. Rousseau called him brother and again took refuge with "mother".
He entered in 1740 as a home tutor in the family of Mably (the brother of the writer), who lived in Lyon. But he was very unsuitable for this role; he did not know how to behave with either pupils or adults; he secretly carried wine to his room, made "eyes" to the mistress of the house. As a result, Russo had to leave.
After an unsuccessful attempt to return to Charmette, Rousseau traveled to Paris to present to the academy the system he had invented to denote notes by numbers; it was not accepted, despite Rousseau's Discourse on Contemporary Music in her defense.
Rousseau receives a post as home secretary from Count Montagu, French envoy to Venice. The envoy looked at him as a servant, while Rousseau imagined himself a diplomat and began to take airs. Subsequently, he wrote that he saved the Kingdom of Naples at this time. However, the envoy kicked him out of the house without paying his salary.
Rousseau returned to Paris and filed a successful complaint against Montague.
He managed to stage his opera Les Muses Galantes at his home theater, but it did not make it onto the royal stage.
Lacking a livelihood, Rousseau entered into a relationship with the maid of the hotel in which he lived, Teresa Levasseur, a young peasant woman, ugly, illiterate, limited - she could not learn to recognize what time it was - and very vulgar. He admitted that he never had the slightest love for her, but married her twenty years later.
Together with her, he had to keep her parents and their relatives. He had 5 children, all of whom were sent to an orphanage. Rousseau justified himself by the fact that he did not have the means to feed them, that they would not allow him to study in peace and that he prefers to make peasants out of them than adventurers, such as he himself was.
Having received the place of secretary from the tax farmer Frankel and his mother-in-law, Rousseau became a domestic man in a circle to which the famous Madame d'Epinay, her friend Grimm and others belonged.
Rousseau often visited them, staged comedies, charmed them with his naive, albeit decorated with fantasy, stories from his life. He was forgiven for his tactlessness (for example, he began by writing a letter to Frankel's mother-in-law with a declaration of love).
In the summer of 1749 Rousseau went to visit Diderot, who was imprisoned in the Vincennes castle. On the way, having opened a newspaper, I read an announcement from the Dijon academy about the prize on the topic "Has the revival of the sciences and the arts contributed to the purification of morals?" A sudden thought struck Rousseau; the impression was so strong that, according to his description, he lay in some kind of intoxication for half an hour under a tree; when he came to, his vest was wet with tears. The thought that dawned on Rousseau encompasses the whole essence of his worldview: "education is harmful and culture itself is a lie and a crime."
Two years later, his operetta "The Village Wizard" was staged on the court stage. hummed his arias; they wanted to introduce him to the king, but Rousseau avoided the honor that could create a secure position for him.
Madame d'Epinay, meeting the tastes of Rousseau, built a dacha for him in the garden of her country estate near Saint-Denis - on the edge of the magnificent Montmorency forest. In the spring of 1756, Rousseau moved to his "Hermitage": nightingales sang under his windows, the forest became his "study", at the same time giving him the opportunity to wander for days in lonely meditation.
Russo was like in paradise, but Teresa and her mother were bored at their dacha and were horrified to learn that Russo wanted to stay in the Hermitage for the winter. This business was settled by friends, but 44-year-old Rousseau passionately fell in love with the 26-year-old Countess Sophie d'Houdetot (fr. Sophie d'Houdetot), a "friend" of Saint-Lambert, who is friendly to Jean-Jacques. Saint-Lambert was on the march; the countess in the spring of 1757 settled alone in a neighboring estate. Rousseau often visited her and finally settled with her; he cried at her feet, while at the same time reproaching himself for betraying his “friend”. The Countess pitied him, listened to his eloquent confessions: confident in her love for another, she admitted intimacy that drove Rousseau's passion to madness. In a modified and idealized form, this story was used by Rousseau in the development of the plot of his novel "Julia, or New Eloise".
Madame d'Epinay mocked the love of the already middle-aged Rousseau for the Countess d'Udeto and did not believe in the purity of their relationship. Saint-Lambert was notified by anonymous letter and returned from the army. Rousseau suspected of divulging Ms. d'Epinay and wrote her an ignoble and insulting letter. She forgave him, but her friends were not so lenient, especially Grimm, who saw a maniac in Rousseau and found it dangerous to indulge such people.
This first clash was soon followed by a complete break with the "philosophers" and with the "Encyclopedia" circle. Madame d'Epinay, going to Geneva for a meeting with the famous physician Theodore Tronschen, invited Rousseau to accompany her. Rousseau replied that it would be strange for the patient to accompany the patient; when Diderot began to insist on the trip, reproaching him for his ingratitude, Rousseau suspected that a "conspiracy" had been formed against him, with the aim of shaming him by appearing in Geneva as a lackey of a tax-farmer, etc.
Rousseau informed the public of his break with Diderot, announcing in the preface to his Letter on theatrical Performances (1758) that he no longer wanted to know his Aristarchus (Diderot).
Leaving the Hermitage, he found a new shelter with the Duke of Luxembourg, owner of the Montmorency castle, who provided him with a pavilion in his park. Here Rousseau spent 4 years and wrote "New Heloise" and "Emile", reading them to his amiable masters, whom he at the same time insulted with suspicions that they were not sincerely disposed towards him, and with statements that he hated their title and high social position.
In 1761 appeared in print "New Eloise", in the spring of the following year - "Emil", and a few weeks later - "Social contract" ("Contrat social"). During the printing of Emile, Rousseau was in great fear: he had strong patrons, but he suspected that the bookseller would sell the manuscript to the Jesuits and that his enemies would distort its text. Emil, however, was published; the thunderstorm struck a little later.
The Paris parliament, preparing to pronounce a sentence on the Jesuits, considered it necessary to condemn the philosophers, and sentenced "Emil", for religious freethinking and indecency, to be burned by the hand of the executioner, and its author - to imprisonment. Prince Conti made this known at Montmorency; The Duchess of Luxembourg ordered Rousseau to be awakened and persuaded him to leave immediately. Rousseau, however, hesitated all day and almost fell prey to his own slowness; on the road he met the bailiffs sent after him, who politely bowed to him.
Rousseau found refuge in the principality of Neuchâtel, which belonged to the Prussian king, and settled in the town of Motier. He found new friends here, wandered in the mountains, chatted with the villagers, sang songs to the village girls. He adapted a suit for himself - a spacious, belted arhaluk, wide trousers and a fur hat, justifying this choice for hygienic reasons. But his peace of mind was not lasting. It seemed to him that the local peasants were too self-important, that they had evil tongues; he began to call Mautier "the meanest abode." He lived like this for a little over three years; then came new calamities and wanderings for him.
Rousseau once called it "touching," but in reality there could not have been a greater contrast than between the two writers. The antagonism between them manifested itself in 1755, when Voltaire, on the occasion of the terrible Lisbon earthquake, renounced optimism, and Rousseau stood up for Providence. Saturated with glory and living in luxury, Voltaire, according to Rousseau, sees only grief on earth; he, unknown and poor, finds that all is well.
Relations escalated when Rousseau, in his Letter on Spectacles, strongly rebelled against the introduction of the theater in Geneva. Voltaire, who lived near Geneva and developed through his home theater in Ferney a taste for dramatic performances among the Genevaites, realized that the letter was directed against him and against his influence on Geneva. Not knowing the measure in his anger, Voltaire hated Rousseau: he sneered at his ideas and writings, then made him crazy.
The controversy between them especially flared up when Rousseau was banned from entering Geneva, which he attributed to the influence of Voltaire. Finally, Voltaire published an anonymous pamphlet accusing Rousseau of intending to overthrow the Geneva Constitution and Christianity and claiming that he had killed Mother Teresa.
From 1770 he settled in Paris, and a more peaceful life began for him; but he still did not know peace of mind, suspecting conspiracies against him or against his writings. He considered the head of the conspiracy the Duke de Choiseul, who ordered the conquest of Corsica, allegedly so that Rousseau would not become the legislator of this island.
In the Masonic archives of the Great East of France, Rousseau, as well as the Count Saint-Germain, is listed in the lists of members of the Masonic lodge "Public Concord of St. John of Ecoss" from August 18, 1775 until his death.
According to one version, in the summer of 1777, Rousseau's health began to instill fear in his friends. In the spring of 1778, one of them, the Marquis de Girardin, took him to his country residence (at the Château de Hermenonville). At the end of June, a concert was arranged for him on an island in the middle of the park; Russo asked to be buried in this place. On July 2, Rousseau died suddenly in the arms of Teresa.
His wish was granted; his grave on the island of "Ives" began to attract hundreds of admirers who saw him as a victim of social tyranny and a martyr of humanity - a representation expressed by the young man Schiller in famous verses, comparing with Socrates, who allegedly died from the sophists, Rousseau, who suffered from Christians whom he tried to make people. During the Convention, Rousseau's body, along with Voltaire's remains, was transferred to the Pantheon, but 20 years later, during the restoration, two fanatics secretly stole Rousseau's ashes at night and threw them into a lime pit.
There is another version of Russo's death. In the Swiss town of Biel / Bienne, not far from Neuchâtel, in the center of the old town, at 12 Untergasse Street, there is a sign: “In this house J.-J. Rousseau met his death in October 1765 ".
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of those philosophers who will provoke debate for a long time to come. Does he belong to the galaxy of thinkers, or, conversely, to its most implacable critics? Was he preparing the ground for the French Revolution, or did he do everything to prevent it from happening? Many biographers have broken their spears arguing over who Jean-Jacques Rousseau was. The main ideas of this philosopher, who belonged simultaneously to the schools of naturalism and sensationalism, we will consider in this article. After all, it was this person who realized that progress brings misfortune, and despotism gives rise to the lack of rights of the majority. In a situation where the bulk of people lived practically below the poverty line, he cherished the idea of universal equality.
The views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: what lies behind them
The main motive of the philosopher's ideas is the demand to bring society out of the state in which it is now. That is, from a situation of general depravity. His fellow educators argued that this was possible if the princes and rulers were properly educated. And also to establish a republic where everyone will receive equal material benefits and political rights. Rousseau believed that the main principle of a correct society lies in correct moral thinking. The philosopher said that "every person is virtuous" when his "private will in everything corresponds to the general will." Morality for him was the main criterion of everything. Therefore, he believed that without virtue, no real freedom exists. But his life was like a refutation of his entire philosophy.
Biography. Youth and early career
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose main ideas we are analyzing, was born in the city of Geneva and was a Calvinist by his religious convictions as a child. His mother died during childbirth, and his father fled the city, as he became a victim of criminal prosecution. From an early age he was apprenticed, but neither the notary nor the engraver, in whose subordination the future philosopher was, did not like him. The fact is that he preferred to voraciously read books, rather than work. He was often punished, and he decided to flee. He came to the neighboring area - Savoy, which was Catholic. There, not without the participation of Madame de Varane, his first patroness, he became a Catholic. This is how the ordeal of the young thinker began. He works as a lackey in an aristocratic family, but does not settle down there and goes back to Madame de Varane. With her help, he goes to study at the seminary, leaves her, wanders around France for two years, often spending the night in the open air, and again returns to his former love. Even the presence of another admirer of the "mother" does not bother him. For several years, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose biography in his youth was so different from his subsequent views, then leaves, then returns to Madame de Varane and lives with her in Paris, in Chambery and in other places.
Maturity
Rousseau eventually found it impossible to remain for a long time as a protege of the aging lady. He tried to make money, but failed. He could neither teach children, nor work as the ambassador's secretary. He had problems with all employers. Misanthropy gradually penetrates the character of this person. He does not agree with people. Nature is what begins to fascinate such a lover of solitude as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The biography of the philosopher suddenly makes a sharp turn - he marries a maid who works in one of the hotels. It was a rude one, which he did not like at all, but she fed him. He gave all his children to an orphanage, claiming later that he had no money to support his family. He continued to earn extra money in various temporary positions, and now, as a secretary, he entered the society of Encyclopedists, who gathered at home. One of his first friends was The latter was often persecuted for. Once, when Jean-Jacques went to visit Diderot in prison, he read in a newspaper a competition announcement for an award for the best work on the topic of whether science and art are useful to society. The young man wrote an essay denouncing culture and civilization. Oddly enough, it was he, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who won the first place. The main ideas of his philosophy were expressed in this text. This is how his biography as a thinker began.
Glory
Since then, Rousseau has lived a brilliant ten years. He wrote music and operettas, which were staged on the royal stage. He was fashionable in high society. And since his main idea was to reject the culture of his day, he abandoned the principles of a rich and prosperous life, began to dress simply (and even rudely) and began to communicate vulgarly and offensively with his aristocratic friends. He made a living by rewriting notes. Although society ladies showered him with gifts, all the gifts went to his greedy wife. Soon, the philosopher wrote another work that became popular. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's political ideas emerged for the first time in this work. Discussing how inequality occurred, the thinker considered that everything that stands at the basis of the life of modern society - the state, laws, division of labor - all this led to a moral decline. One of Rousseau's connoisseurs, Madame d'Epinay, built a special "Hermitage" for him in her possession in the middle of the forest, where the philosopher could indulge in thought alone. However, after an unsuccessful romance with a young married aristocrat, which led to a scandal among the Enitsklopedists, Rousseau broke up with his comrades.
Problems
The philosopher finds shelter with the Duke of Luxembourg, where he lives for another four years and writes many works. One of them incurs the wrath of the Church on him, and he flees from the judgment of the Paris Parliament. Taking refuge in his native Switzerland, he sees that he is not welcome here either - the government of the Berne canton is expelling the philosopher. The Prussian king provides him with a new refuge - Rousseau spends three more years in the village of Motier. However, then his quarrelsome nature makes him quarrel with all the surrounding residents. Trying to start a new life, he comes to Geneva and again accepts Calvinism, but he cannot get along peacefully with representatives of this confession, and begins to quarrel with them. The apogee of these problems was the conflict with another "ruler of thoughts" of that era - Voltaire, who also lived near Geneva, in the Fernet estate. A mocking rival, with the help of pamphlets, survives Jean-Jacques from Motier, and Rousseau is forced to flee to England. He accepts an invitation from another philosopher, Hume. But even with him it is impossible to get along, and after a while a new friend declares Russo crazy.
Wanderings and death
The philosopher returns to Paris, wanders again, finding refuge first with one friend, then with another. Voltaire begins to publish pamphlets about the terrible life of a man named Rousseau Jean-Jacques. The philosophy and actions of this "hypocrite" do not coincide at all, the opponent notes. In response, Rousseau writes the famous "Confession", trying to justify his past and present. But his mental illness is progressing. His health is rapidly deteriorating, and soon, according to one version, during a concert in his honor, the philosopher suddenly dies. His grave on the Island of Ives became a place of pilgrimage for the thinker's fans who believed that Rousseau had fallen victim to social ostracism.
Rousseau Jean-Jacques. The philosophy of escapism
As already mentioned, the first works of the thinker were competitive "Discourses" about art, sciences and the origin of inequality. Subsequently, he wrote such works as "The Social Contract", "Emile, or Education of the Senses" and "New Eloise". Some of his works are written in essay form and some as novels. It was the latter that Jean-Jacques Rousseau became most famous for. The basic ideas about denouncing civilization and culture, from which one should run, expressed by him in his youth, find their natural continuation. The main thing in a person, as the philosopher believed, is not reason at all, but feelings. The basic instincts of the moral being should be recognized as Conscience and Genius. Unlike the mind, they are not mistaken, although they are often not realized. The renaissance, which everyone admires, led to a real decline in society, because the sciences, arts and industrial development, which began at that time, led to the alienation of people from each other and the emergence of artificial needs. And the task of a real philosopher is again to make a person united and, accordingly, happy.
Historical views
But not only the Renaissance and its achievements were denounced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The social contract theory is one of his main philosophical conclusions. Criticizing contemporary political ideas, he contradicts the then popular Hobbes. In the primitive era, Rousseau believes, there was no "war of all against all", but there was a real "golden age". The modern fallen society begins with the emergence of private property - as soon as someone staked out a plot and declared: "This is mine," the childish innocence of mankind disappeared. Of course, you cannot reverse science, but you can slow down progress as such. For this it is necessary to conclude a social contract and create a republic of equal small owners. All issues there will be resolved not by separation of powers, but by referendums.
What a person should be
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote a lot about education. A person, first of all, should be a natural being, because all his main ones are conditioned by nature. Since feelings, as we have already found out, are the main thing in people, then it is them that should be developed. Superfluous reasoning only tires, and does not at all exalt. Real human dignity comes from the heart, not from the mind. People try not to hear the voice of conscience, but this is the call of Nature itself. In his pursuit of civilization, man forgot about it and became deaf. Therefore, he should return to his ideal, represented by the image of a "noble savage", surrendering to the immediacy of feelings, and not broken by unnecessary requirements of artificial etiquette.
Enlightenment and education
The philosopher's views are full of contradictions. Breaking down on culture and science, Rousseau, nevertheless, always used their fruits and in the upbringing of a person recognized their necessity and undoubted merits. He believed, like many of his contemporaries, that if the rulers listened to philosophers, then society would become more perfect. But this is not the only contradiction that was characteristic of such a thinker like Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The philosopher's pedagogical ideas pin their hopes on enlightenment, which he criticized so much. It is precisely this that can make it possible to educate worthy citizens, and without this, both rulers and subordinates will be just slaves and liars. But at the same time, one must remember that a person's childhood is his memory of the lost paradise of the golden age, and try to take as much as possible from nature.
Virtue is the foundation of everything
Although the life of a philosopher did not correspond to his views, morality plays an important role in his works. Emotions and compassion, from the point of view of a thinker, are the main basis of virtue, and the latter lies at the basis of a person and society. So Rousseau Jean-Jacques thought. about morality, nature and religion are very similar. Both virtue and faith must be subordinate to nature, he said. Only then will society be ideal when harmony with the interests of all members of society will be achieved between the inner world of a person, its moral, emotional and rational components. Therefore, individuals must overcome their moral alienation from each other and not be like politicians who "are more like not rabid wolves ... than Christians ... who want to return their opponents to the path of truth."
The influence of Rousseau on his own and subsequent centuries was undeniable. His ideas about the opposition of selfishness and virtue, justice and deceit of false laws, the greed of property owners and the innocence of the poor, as well as dreams of returning to nature, were taken up by romantics, fighters for a better social order and social rights, seekers of solidarity and brotherhood.
