Talk:Jean-Jacques Rousseau/Archive 2

Bias in the Philosophy section
There seem to be many loaded phrases in this section. The worst offender is: "There is no inconsistency but rather a strong unity in Rousseau's thought." Whoever wrote this didn't even find a respectable source for his opinion. I'm not entirely sure how unified Rousseau's thought is, but commentators seem to spend an awful lot of time trying to make his apparent contradictions cohere. Rather than balance these views with some opposing them, could someone (more knowledgeable than me about J.J.!) strip out the P.o.V.? Cheers. IanDavidMorris 13:40, 26 Feb 2009 (GMT)

I agree that a citation would be appropriate here. I believe, however that modern scholars do incline to the view that contrary to popular misconception Rousseau's theories are consistent rather than otherwise. The main problem is that the author of the offending sentence was sentence probably was not an English speaker and was merely stating what they regarded as a commonplace.96.250.29.234 (talk) 21:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)03-09


 * Rousseau himself maintained that "one great principle" was evident in all his books (Confessions [IX Oeuvres Completes, Paris: Hachette, 1871-77] VIII, 290-91). A small band of scholars at the beginning of the 20th century, notably Gustave Lanson, a historiographer of French literature, and E.H. Wright of Columbia, began to study Rousseau's complete works with a view to finding this underlying unifying principle. In 1932, the great scholar Ernst Cassirer wrote "Das Problem Jean Jacques Rousseau," demonstrating that the consistency of Rousseau's thought lay in his "rationalist conception of freedom." Within a few years his interpretation was accepted by the majority of scholars, though some persist in seeing Rousseau's thought as contradictory (see Ernst Casssirer, The Question of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Peter Gay editor and translator; Columbia Bicentennial Editions, General editor, Jacques Barzun, New York: Columbia University Press, 1954).


 * Those who maintained that Rousseau was an irrationalist and questioned the consistency of his thought were exhaustively refuted by Charles W. Hendel (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Moralist, 2 volumes, Oxford University Press, 1934). Beginning in the 1950s Robert Derathé showed that "the political theory of Rousseau emerged from his reflections on the theories held by thinkers who belong to what has been called the school of the law of nature and law of nations." Derathé traced Rousseau's debt to Grotius and Pufendorf as well as to Hobbes and Locke. He concludes that "Rousseau never believed that one should fail to employ one's reason. . . . Quite to the contrary, he wanted to teach us how to use it well. . . . Rousseau is a rationalist aware of the limits of reason." (Quoted in Peter Gay, introduction to The Question of Jean Jacques Rousseau by Ernst Cassirer.24.105.152.153 (talk) 17:36, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Legacy Quote
There is a serious problem with the quote. The article says Rousseau was against property rights. The quote says that "property right is certainly the most important right, sometimes more than liberty itself." I don't know enough about Rousseau to say, but there is a clear contradiction there.

"The article says Rousseau was against property rights." <--- I can't find such a claim. By the way, I don't believe Rousseau was against property rights: he saw them as a consequence of society, and compared them to the so-called natural rights. --Kubrick 908 11:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Jean Jacques was a famous man, he was know for being a famous writer and against child labor. His descendants still survive today.

Rousseau maintained that disputes about property and envy of men against their neighbors were the cause of civilization's problems -- "the fall of man" if you will. Rousseau's views here are not very distinguishable from the teachings of the Bible or from that of other seventeenth and eighteenth century thinkers. He certainly does not say that people should not own property.

Rousseau believed that a society made up of independent, middle class people is the most healthy and desirable. He believed that the Republic of Geneva, which was a state of this kind, was the ideal state, as opposed to absolutitist France, which was characterized by great extremes of wealth and poverty. Rousseau contrasted the prosperity of independent farmers of Geneva with the misery of the French peasantry just across the border. Like most Eighteenth Century Philosophes, Rousseau was a critic of unbridled consumption, and like them admired the militaristic Spartan way of life (as opposed to the Athenian), an admiration that many modern people might find difficult to share (though the success of the movie the 300 shows that many folks still admire the Spartans). Nevertheless, Rousseau's preference for a more equitable distribution of goods and his disapproval of excessive and wasteful consumption is one that modern peoples can sympathize with. Mballen (talk) 18:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As a matter of fact, in the Social Contract Rousseau states that he believes that property rights are the most important thing that civil society conferred on the citizenry. A "state of nature" offers no protection to property, because where "might makes right", anyone can take things from anyone else. In this Rousseau agreed with Locke. However, he drew from this the conclusion that since people with property have the most to gain from the existence of civil government, they should pay the most (taxes) toward its upkeep. He also felt that a society would be more stable if it had a preponderance of people in the middle station, rather than extremities of rich and poor. Rousseau also believed in sumptuary taxes (sales taxes on luxuries) and in state regulation inheritance practices. In a Discourse on Political Economy he says that he favors private property along side of large tracts of state-owned land, as was the case in Roman times. 24.105.152.153 (talk) 19:09, 24 March 2009 (UTC)March 24, 2009

Attn: Someone with edit permissions
In the second paragraph of the section labeled Theory of Natural Man, "Orangutang" should be spelled "orangutan" (no caps) and the link to Buffon should point to this Buffon.L1ttleTr33 (talk) 04:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)L1ttleTr33 Done! Mballen (talk) 20:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Durkheim
Hi, if there is anyone who watches this page who knows a lot about Emile Durkheim, could you contact me? Thanks, Slrubenstein  |  Talk 12:28, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of Rousseau (namely, in Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals")
There's no appreciable criticism of Rousseau in the article at present. It seems prudent to me to include a section detailing his shortcomings as well as lauding his lasting influence.


 * I haven't read "Intellectuals," so I may be being unfair, but I imagine it's an attack against Rousseau's philosophy based on character flaws which may or may not have existed (i.e.: how can a man who is claimed to have fathered multiple children, and abandoned them all write a treatise on education). I don't know what ad hominem attacks offer to understanding the writings and philosophy of a writer.


 * That being said, real criticisms (the contradictions in his writing perhaps) are always useful, but perhaps too academic if they are to be looked at thoroughly.--86.141.246.70 21:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It seems to me legitimate to discuss the hostility of some commentators on Rousseau, especially during the Cold War period.76.124.119.157 (talk) 02:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)2009


 * Come now! Doesn't trivializing as "ad hominem attacks" any mention of the fact that he callously consigned his five infant offspring to an orphanage ... go rather too far in sanitizing the history of a man who so famously used the foibles of society to discredit many of its most deeply held beliefs?


 * The article as written seems to shamefully avoid much that gives insight into Rousseau and his peculiar worldview. ChulaOne (talk) 14:40, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Puzzling
"Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778) was a philosopher and composer of the Enlightenment whose political philosophy influenced the French Revolution, the development of both liberal and socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism. With his Confessions and other writings, he practically invented modern autobiography and encouraged a new focus on the building of subjectivity that would bear fruit in the work of thinkers as diverse as Hegel and Freud."

The sentence is kind of long, but what really gets me is "a new focus on the building of subjectivity." Building? What does that mean? Should it be 'the understanding of subjectivity'? Or is the author trying to say, 'the development of subjectivity'? Or something else?

GeneCallahan (talk) 14:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I would think that it should read: "&hellip;a new focus on subjectivity that would&hellip;." Subjectivity had been an important viewpoint for many centuries, especially after the writings of St. Augustine.Lestrade (talk) 23:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)Lestrade

Biography
On what grounds is it claimed that Rousseau had a "distorted view of sexuality"? Martin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.218.50.96 (talk) 15:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Apparently no one can justify this.. so I will delete the sentence: "he was extremely interested in Romance Novels in his youth, which likely contributed to his distorted view of sexuality". Breiten (talk) 16:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Romance novels in the eighteenth century referred to works like Gil Blas, Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberato and Ariosto's Orlando (romance epics) and were not at all the same as what we think of as Romance novels today, They were stories of knights, battles, and magic weapons, and were more like adventure comics, westerns, or action movies. Samuel Johnson and Voltaire also were entranced by this extremely popular genre as youths. There is no reason at all to think it could have affected Rousseau's sexuality (about which we know little, by the way) one way or the other. Whoever wrote this article has an ax to grind against Rousseau and is lacking in historical perspective, knowledge and objectivity and appears to be motivated by a desire to blame Rousseau for the evils of modern life. Rousseau was and is criticized because he had the temerity to claim that all men are equal. That is what his detractors cannot stand.Mballen (talk) 16:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * He didn't say that all men are equal. In his Discourse on inequality, he wrote that all men were equal when they were simple, original savages. As soon as they became socialized, however, differences became apparent and have resulted in today's heterogeneousness. People have some things in common, making them equal to each other in certain ways. They also obviously have great differences with each other, making them unequal in many ways. Lestrade (talk) 18:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)Lestrade

WP:GA
I'm thinking of nominating this for GA. What do you think? Maurreen (talk) 20:24, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * On a quick check, I would suggest reducing the size of the external links. Among them and "Online texts" (which are basically the same thing), they are a lot, and a reviewer may point that. It would be better to select the best ones, or seek some "Portal" that links to many online works rather than link them individually here. There's also a bare link at the "Religion" section, that should be removed or turned into a reference MBelgrano (talk) 23:52, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I'll work on that. Maurreen (talk) 15:42, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I changed the link in the "Religion" section to a reference, using another as an example. It's the first time I've done that, so I'd appreciate if someone would check it. Thanks. Maurreen (talk) 15:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I have placed a tag of Wildbot, a bot that will check if any link leads to a disambiguation page or an incorrect article section. If there are any, it will list them, and they should be fixed. The bot will remove itself the template when the work is done, or remove it right now if all liks are correct. MBelgrano (talk) 03:52, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I fixed them. Maurreen (talk) 04:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Contemporary criticism
Dr. Johnson was highly critical of Rousseau. From Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson: "I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a shame that he is protected in this country." Dugong.is.good.tucker (talk) 23:56, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Voltaire was highly critical of Rousseau as well. He said that reading Rousseau's Social Contract made him want to get down and walk on all fours. Edmund Burke was also highly critical of Rousseau, his tone in writing about him came close to hatred because he blamedi him for the excesses of the terror. The philosopher David Hume said that the reason Rousseau was criticized was that alone of other philosophers he did not dissimulate or disguise his real views. On the other hand Claude Levi-Strauss and others have written in praise of Rousseau. Many who have criticized Rousseau have not actually read him carefully.Mballen (talk) 18:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

"'It is notorious that Voltaire objected to the education of laborers' children' – Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: The Science of Freedom,p.36."

"Hume professed no surprise when he learned that Rousseau's books were banned in Geneva and elsewhere [and he was threatened with imprisonment]. Rousseau, he wrote, 'has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments; and as he scorns to dissemble his contempt for established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him. The liberty of the press is not so secured in any country … as not to render such an open attack on popular prejudice somewhat dangerous. --Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, The Science of Freedom, p.72.Mballen (talk) 19:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)"

This cannot be seen as criticism though, as Hume admired Rousseau enough to allow him to join him in England when he was exiled nearly everywhere else. In fact, if you are familiar with Hume's writings, this seems more like a very strong and flattering compliment. Tancrisism (talk) 01:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

"'Not all the realism in the world can make it easier to forgive the world its inability to accomodate Rousseau's principles. For his principles are those which most forcibly demonstrate the connection between politics and moral life, which more clearly associate manhood and political activity. When we have understood Rousseau's principles, it is not too much to say, we have understood the distinction between a fully acceptable political order and one that is not.' --George Kateb, Utopia and its Enemies (1963) quoted in Mario Einaudi, The Early Rousseau, pp 8-9."

"Rousseau was well aware that his vision of the ideal man was 'perhaps a fanciful one.' He wrote in a letter 'This man does not exist, you will say. So be it, but he can exist as a hypothesis.' --Letter to Beaumont, quoted in Mario Einaudi, p. 245."

Unbalanced tag in Legacy section
An editor has placed an Unbalanced tag in the Legacy section, but not stated the reason for it. Since I was reverted in removing it on that account, I thought I would start this section, and perhaps oblige the editor to state their reason for adding it on the talk page, as is usually the custom. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:12, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to ask. Did you read the section and find it balanced? Please answer.


 * What I get is:
 * the volonté générale was not original with him.
 * The cult that grew up around Rousseau after his death, caused him to become identified with the Reign of Terror
 * the blame for the excesses of the French Revolution is directly linked to the revolutionaries' misplaced adulation of Rousseau
 * In America the direct influence of Rousseau was not great
 * ...and all this before we get to the full section detailing the Criticisms of Rousseau.


 * Where is the positive legacy of this original, influential thinker? ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 23:18, 4 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for providing an explanation for your placement of the tag on the talk page. Hopefully it will help improve the quality of the article. --Saddhiyama (talk) 23:25, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Political philosophy
The whole political philosophy section, shall we say, lacks citations. It quotes the Economie Politique once, the Social Contract once, and refers to a chapter for a grand total of three citations in four paragraphs; not really enough for the subject matter. And as a whole it seems a simplified version of part of Rosseau's political theory, but it doesn't give a clear idea of his theory as a whole. I can't say I know his writings very well, but from the books I've read he spends at least as much time explaining what forms and manners of government will be stable in various situations as he does imagining his ideal government.

And this sentence in the opening paragraphs, " His Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and his On the Social Contract are cornerstones in modern political and social thought and make a strong[citation needed] case for democratic government and social empowerment." isn't quite true. In On the Social Contract, book three ch 4, he writes “So perfect a government is not for men.”

I'd be glad to help, but as mentioned hereinabove, I'm only so familiar with so much of his writings. Cynops3 (talk) 02:19, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I contributed a great deal to various section of this article, but not to the philosophy, except to try to make it more idiomatic (I think it may have been contributed by someone whose first language was not English) because I felt I needed to read a great deal more before attempting to. So, yes. That section could use improvement.Mballen (talk) 14:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Durkheim deux
Hi, if there is anyone who watches this page who knows a lot about Emile Durkheim, could you contact me? Thanks Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:24, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Tomb picture
It appears to be sideways, I'm pretty sure it needs to be turned 90° to the left. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.220.49.44 (talk) 01:06, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Influence on the Founding Fathers of the United States
I think Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced definetely the Founding Fathers of the United States. I found this source about it: "Jean Jacques Rousseau and John Locke each took the social contract theory one step further. Rousseau wrote The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right in which he explained that the government is based on the idea of popular sovereignty. Thus the will of the people as a whole gives power and direction to the state. John Locke also based his political writings on the idea of the social contract. He stressed the role of the individual. He also believed that revolution was not just a right but an obligation if the state abused their given power. Obviously these ideas had a huge impact on the Founding Fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson and James Madison."81.193.220.8 (talk) 22:41, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * "About.com" unfortunately doesn't qualify as a "reliable source", 81. As a matter of fact, I, too, believe the founding fathers were influenced by Rousseau, at least at first. However, I have not found reliable sources to confirm that this was so. Most say they took from Locke's Social Contract theory not that of Rousseau. On the other hand, we are emerging from a period (the Cold War) in which Rousseau tended to be disparaged, so perhaps more evidence that the founders looked to Rousseau will emerge, perhaps in the areas of Civic Religion, federalism, and human rights. Mballen (talk) 14:42, 21 April 2012 (UTC)


 * A book like Frederick William Dames Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Political Literature Colonial America would probably be a good source for some of this. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:55, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Suzanne Bernard Rousseau
This article claims that she died of puerperal fever nine days after giving birth, but the article on puerperal fever claims she survived the infection. Can someone please correct this discrepancy? 209.6.28.116 (talk) 22:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Theory of the Natural Human
There is a problem with a section on "Theory of the Natural Human" -- Rousseau's prizewinning first essay, on the Arts and Sciences, ought to be discussed first. The quotation about property is also not very apt, since it comes from the second essay. Rousseau described the problem in the first essay (Arts and Sciences), namely, that progress, rather than improving life for everyone, had brought misery to millions and luxury to a few. In the Second Discourse (which deals with the natural man), he described how this happened, giving an explanation based on cultural evolution. This is the essay in which he sometimes appears, on a superficial reading, to be advocating primitivism, as used to be thought by his critics ( Rousseau himself anticipated this criticism). Quoting Rousseau out of context can be very misleading. In the third essay, The Social Contract, dedicated to the city of Geneva, Rousseau proposes a political remedies. (His ideas about education and religion are set forth in Emile. There is also the essay on Political Economy and the proposal for the constitution of Poland). In any case, neither the title of the section, nor the epigraph about property does justice to Rousseau's thought, and both need to be changed. "Social Criticism"might be better for the title; and something from Rousseau's writings about amour propre (self-regard, or vanity), on which Rousseau blamed all mankind's troubles (not property, as now implied), for example, might be more appropriate for the epigraph. Mballen (talk) 03:01, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Addition to Émile
I added the following to the section on Émile:The education proposed in Émile has been criticized for being impractical, and the topic itself (the education of children) has led the text to be ignored by many studying Rousseau’s more “political” works. However, of particular interest to anyone interested in Rousseau’s intentions in Émile is a letter he wrote to his friend Cramer on October 13, 1764. In the letter, Rousseau answers the criticism of impracticability: “You say quite correctly that it is impossible to produce an Emile. But I cannot believe that you take the book that carries this name for a true treatise on education. It is rather a philosophical work on this principle advanced by the author in other writings that man is naturally good” (Italics in the original).

I think this is important information for anyone interested in Rousseau's philosophy (especially those who believe he has a "system"). The quote comes from a footnote in Arthur Melzer's book "The Natural Goodness of Man" (including the reference to italics being in the original; that is, Mezler did not add the italics).--86.141.246.70 21:09, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I also deleted the part about him being a "Swiss" philosopher. As someone else said, he wasn't Swiss, but Genevan (and that's what he called himself


 * Re: Does Rousseau have "a system"?
 * According to Victor Gourevitch, the most influential modern study of Rousseau’s political philosophy is Robert Derathé’s Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la science politique de son temps (Vrin, Paris, 1970), which stresses the “coherence and cogency” of Rousseau’s thought. (see Victor Gourevich, introduction to The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Gourevich, ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p, cxxxvii.Mballen (talk) 18:41, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Re: Rousseau on education and women
 * Regarding Emile, and criticism of Rousseau, I think the paragraph does not do justice to the criticism he received in his own time; it feels like criticism directed at him is mainly contemporary. However, Belle van Zuylen, or Isabella Tuyll de Charrière, the name she used to publish in France, criticised Rousseau extensively. In her 1791 book 'Three women' she rejects Rousseau's idea of natural inequality between man and woman (which I don't see mentioned here either, by the way). She writes, and I will try and translate from Dutch:‘I doubt whether Rousseau ever saw anything, like it really was. (...) All faculties are originally identical between man and woman, and if the intellectual faculty in men is more perfected, then that is caused by study and by study alone.'. She also wrote that ‘in Émile ou de l’éducation (Rousseau) hardly gave a thought to the ambitions and rights of Sophie, who is a slave raised on behalf of her master’. In the earliest letters Van Zuylen already complains about Rousseau's ideas that it was unseemly for women to study and try to develop intellectually; in her letter to Constant d’Hermenches she writes about the joys studying always brings her.
 * The above criticism can be read in an essay by Joke Hermsen, in Dutch magazine De Groene Amsterdammer, (nr.23, 6/6/2012). Hermsen is a philosopher who also wrote her dissertation ('Nomadisch narcisme' Nomadic narcism), as well as a novel ('De liefde, dus' / So it's love - Arbeiderspers (2008))  about Belle Van Zuylen. In the same essay Hermsen also mentions that Mme de Staël, who wrote the positive 'Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractere de J.J. Rousseau' in 1788 recanted her positive descriptions in 1814, claiming the 'lettres' were published without her knowledge or consent. Most likely a lie, of course, as earlier in life she apparently agreed with Rousseau: in her book 'De l’Allemagne' she agreed with him that women should stay out of politics - it would be contrary to a woman's calling, and would only create tension between the sexes.  Finally, not surprisingly, considering what I read on this page about her, Mme d’Épinay also criticised Rousseau's ideas, although I do not have any specifics. Considering how Rousseau clearly saw women as having a very specific role, that of wife and mother, and considering the fact he objected to their intellectual development, I think the attention given to Rousseau's stance towards women should at least be expanded. The above essay, letters and the book may help in finding relevant information, although I doubt the book will be translated in English. The magazine I mentioned the article was published in, is a respectable one in The Netherlands, albeit left of the political centre. Personally my interest here is not criticism of Rousseau, merely accuracy - I am currently studying for my bachelor in philosophy at the Erasmus University. Dekritischelezer (talk) 20:08, 11 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Nicholas Dent, a modern scholar of Rousseau, mades no bones about calling Rousseau a "sexist". And so he undoubtedly was by our standards, influenced as he was by the ideas of Fenelon, who was an out and out misogynist, not to mention Rousseau's own weird ideas about sexuality and his fixations on women in their maternal role (resulting from his deprivations in that area).  As for Madame d'Epinay, she was Rousseau's avowed enemy so one could expect her to criticize him. Both Rousseau and Fenelon influenced the concept of the Victorian role of women as the "angel in the house" -- but so did other people.   I think the section on education and child-rearing does mention Rousseaus attitudes toward women, and the attitude of feminists toward him. On the other hand, I feel myself, that Rousseau's idea of economic equality applied to both sexes and was taken  -- he was part of a trend that increasing recognized the dignity and humanity of people from all walks of life, not just the aristocracy. As far as the "criticism" section -- I think it would be better not to have a "criticism section at all, but to focus on the responses to Rousseau both positive and negative. This would better convey the impact of his ideas on future generations. Mballen (talk) 22:42, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Removed from "Legacy"
I've removed the following para from "Legacy"

Political thinkers across the spectrum of politics, from Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson to Benito Mussolini and the Khmer Rouge, have claimed some influence from Rousseau to varying degrees. In particular, 19th century nationalist movements in Europe were heavily inspired by Rousseau's ideas about nations and General Will.

I don't think this should be in without substantiation and I don't think this can be had for either Jefferson or the Khmer Rouge (don't know about the others).

Bristoleast 08:22, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

In the case of Jefferson, Saul Padover's biography of Jefferson mentions Rousseau's influence on his thought, as does Eric Hobsbawm in "The Age of Revolution". Hobsbawm also mentions Rousseau's influence on Paine.

Legacy section is a mess and contains bits of commentary on individual works that really belong elsewhere. This section is also being repeatedly revised by anonymous users with strong pov about Rousseau being (along with Hegel) a "theorist of the closed society" or similar. As well as being a controversial label of Popperian provenance, this description is hardly transparent to the average reader.

Bristoleast 21:08, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

An example of the mess: in the subsection "French Revolution" (4.1), the bit of info "Among other things, the ship of the line Jean-Jacques Rousseau (launched in 1795) was named after the philosopher." Not uninteresting, but out of place. Someone must have removed a more pertinent sentence meant to illustrate how Rousseau was blamed for the excesses of the Revolution.Svato (talk) 00:21, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Freemasonry
I have a 2007 edition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Restless Genius. The citation given to back the claim that Rousseau was a Freemason does not do so. It refers to the picture "Allegorie Revolutionnaire" by N H Jeaurat de Berry, which contains a single instance of an alleged masonic symbol (an Egyptian obelisk). The only other reference to Freemasonry in the book is on page 393 where it refers to his friends Pury and Du Peyrou being Freemasons. If no-one can supply solid evidence for this statement, I'll remove it.--Swahilli (talk) 23:51, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Removed the statement from the lead.Swahilli (talk) 18:53, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Enlightenment v. Romanticism
I know it's common to say that Rousseau was a romanticist writing in the Enlightenment era and all that, but to my mind, it would be fair to add an 'Enlightenment philosophy' category under school in his infobox, and perhaps mention the ambiguity in the opening paragraph. Even if he has some idiosyncratic ideas for the time, a lot of his thinking is far closer to what you'd traditionally call Enlightenment philosophy than Romanticism, and I think it's misleading to include one and exclude the other. --87.55.111.25 (talk) 14:01, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually there is a large difference between the philosophers of the Enlightenment school and that of Rousseau who is held by many to be the originator of the philosophical school of Romanticism. Rousseau's criteria for truth were emotion and feeling over reason which puts him at odds with the Enlightenment thinkers who held reason as the criteria for truth. Often Rousseau is called the founder of the "anti- Enlightenment" and this can throw off people as they think that this title would make him in favor of the ancient-regime in France, but in fact it’s more of an argument over what humans should do once they stand on the rubble of monarchy, aristocracy, and theocracy (both schools rebelled against this order).

Rousseau was dear friends with Diderot (until later in life personality conflicts break them up), and Diderot is among the very top of the Enlightenment philosophers. While Rousseau did write a few pieces (mostly on music) for the Encyclopedia that Diderot was making (to spread reason and knowledge) Rousseau’s First Discourse marks a radical departure from Diderot's school and is commonly held as the beginning of Romanticism.

For Rousseau the arts and sciences were actually evils and humans would be better if they had never joined together in societies but had stayed in the wilderness where he pictures they would wander around in solitary lives - which though they might seem short and brutal to us, would just seem normal to them. He held that this would be more authentic and driven by pure emotion – instead of worrying about status and being constantly anxious on what others thought about you and your place in society. He felt this "original innocence" was unrecoverable due to the corrupting habit of being in societies, but that humans would be better if they tried to reach for that ideal as much as possible. Diderot and the Enlightenment philosophers held emotion suspect, as it could introduce bias and cloud a person's reason - which alone was the way to reach truth. So it would be a mistake to place Rousseau in the school of 'Enlightenment philosophy' – he openly rejected this school. --Wowaconia (talk) 16:19, 24 April 2013 (UTC)