Rousseau, born in 1712, lived in the time of Transition. This was a time two years before the death of the famous Sun King, Louis XIV. He later died ten years before the French Revolution.
He was part of the Circle of French Intellectuals, most notably of all was Voltaire who created the 'Encyclopedie' This was aimed to bring together all human knowledge and also to be a reference for all future generations.
In the 1750s occurred the progress of the arts and science which raised the question as to whether art and science had a beneficial effect on morality? Rousseau believed the answer to this question is no, we progress through testing and challenging what happened before so that therefore humanity is able to progress. This view is similar to Francis Bacon.
Rousseau's other famous books were involved with the Romantic Movement. There is a body of facts to which we must submit, science is submission. The opposite of this is the Notion of the Will. Creating values is what men do in the same way that man makes a work of art and therefore until we create these values they don't exist. The heart of this progress is invention out of nothing, the most central idea being that we create our own universe.
In Rousseau's book: 'Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Men' humanity are labelled as naturally good but has been corrupted by society throughout time. He compares the effects of history on humanity to be like a statue which is damaged by the elements. The 'Noble Savage' was someone that Rousseau described as living outside of society and is close to nature, free from being distorted by society. Rousseau was extremely interested in tribes discovered during the age of the European Exploration, he believed them to be the peak of humanity since they haven't been corrupted by other influences.
The Social Contract: ''Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains.'' This is the most famous line from Rousseau's most famous book. This caused so much uproar that he was forced to flee and copies of his book were burnt.
Hobbes believed that we needed a supreme Leviathan to control and preserve society or else we will live short, brutish lives filled with war. However, Rousseau said that war and violence only come into being once we are in society. The state of war is really the state of society. ''War all against.''
Locke on the other hand, believed that we need a sovereign to protect society and our property. He was greatly concerned with property. However, Rousseau believed that property only complicated things and caused more problems to do with inequality: ''You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the Earth belong to all and the Earth to no one.''
Natural Man was virtuous according to Rousseau and he considered the Golden Age to be a reaction against the corruption of 18th century society. Society corrupts us and makes us obsess about possessions and social standing-how we are viewed by others. We are trapped in a competition of self-esteem. He doesn't believed however that we have natural rights, unlike Locke and more similar to Bentham. Law is expression of the General Will.
General Will allows us to ''find a form of association which depends and protects with all the common force, the person and gods of each associate, and by means of which each one while writing with all obeys only himself and remains as free as before.'' Because we all agree and contribute to the shaping of this General Will, when we obey its laws we do no more than obey ourselves. Anyone who refuses to obey the General Law: ''Will be forced to be free.'' Our freedom starts where the law begins. Kant called Rousseau the 'Newton of Morality'.
The French Revolution
Everyone believed this to be the fantastic start of a new age where people would be given the opportunity to come back to being their true natural beings. However, this revolution collapsed into terror. The government deliberately used violence and the king was even executed in 1793. Thousands of people were killed during this 'Reign of Terror'. Therefore, it wasn't a glorious revolution and went against Rousseau's beliefs.
