Jean Jacques Rousseau The Second Discourse Pdf Viewer
Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (French: Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'in. Jean Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss philosopher and political theorist who lived much of his life in France. The Social Contract and The First and Second Discourses and. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s. Notes: Discourse on Inequality: Preface Summary Rousseau begins by twisting the prize question towards his own particular agenda.
Jump to navigationJump to search| Author | Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
|---|---|
| Original title | Discours sur les sciences et les arts |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Publisher | Geneva, Barillot & fils [i. e. Paris, Noël-Jacques Pissot] |
Publication date | 1750 |
| London, W. Owen, 1751 |
A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences (1750), also known as Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (French: Discours sur les sciences et les arts) and commonly referred to as The First Discourse, is an essay by GenevanphilosopherJean-Jacques Rousseau which argued that the arts and sciences corrupt human morality. It was Rousseau's first successful published philosophical work, and it was the first expression of his influential views about nature vs. society, to which he would dedicate the rest of his intellectual life. This work is considered one of his most important works.
Topic of the essay[edit]
Rousseau wrote Discourse in response to an advertisement that appeared in a 1749 issue of Mercure de France, in which the Academy of Dijon set a prize for an essay responding to the question: 'Has the restoration of the sciences and arts contributed to the purification of morals?' According to Rousseau, 'Within an instant of reading this [advertisement], I saw another universe and became another man.' Rousseau found the idea to which he would passionately dedicate the rest of his intellectual life: the destructive influence of civilization on human beings. Rousseau went on to win first prize in the contest and—in an otherwise mundane career as composer and playwright, among other things—he had newfound fame as a philosopher. Scholar Jeff J.S. Black points out that Rousseau is one of the first thinkers within the modern democratic tradition to question the political commitment to scientific progress found in most modern societies (especially liberal democracies) and examined the costs of such policies.[1] In the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, Rousseau 'authored a scathing attack on scientific progress..an attack whose principles he never disavowed, and whose particulars he repeated, to some extent, in each of his subsequent writings.'[1]
Rousseau's account about his initial encounter with the question has become well known. Rousseau's friend Denis Diderot had been imprisoned at Vincennes for writing a work questioning the idea of a providential God. As he walked to the prison to visit him, Rousseau was perusing a copy of the Mercury of France, and when his eyes fell upon the question posed by the Academy of Dijon, he felt a sudden and overwhelming inspiration 'that man is naturally good, and that it is from these institutions alone that men become wicked'. Rousseau was able to retain only some of the thoughts, the 'crowd of truths', that flowed from that idea—these eventually found their way into his Discourses and his novel Emile.[1]
In his work Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques, Rousseau used a fictional Frenchman as a literary device to lay out his intent in the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences and his other systematic works. The character explains that Rousseau was showing the 'great principle that nature made man happy and good, but that society depraves him and makes him miserable..vice and error, foreign to his constitution, enter it from outside and insensibly change him.' The character describes the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences as an effort 'to destroy that magical illusion which gives us a stupid admiration for the instruments of our misfortunes and [an attempt] to correct that deceptive assessment that makes us honor pernicious talents and scorn useful virtues. Throughout he makes us see the human race as better, wiser, and happier in its primitive constitution; blind, miserable, and wicked to the degree that it moves away from it. His goal is to rectify the error of our judgements in order to delay the progress of our vices, and to show us that where we seek glory and renown, we in fact find only error and miseries'.[1]
An example of one of 'those metaphysical subtleties' that Rousseau may have been referring to was the consideration of materialism or Epicureanism. Scholar Victor Gourevitch, examining Rousseau's Letter to Voltaire, notes: 'Although he returns to the problem of materialism throughout his life, Rousseau does not ever discuss it at any length. He chooses to write from the perspective of the ordinary course of things, and philosophical materialism breaks with the ordinary course of things. It is what he early called one of those metaphysical subtleties that do not directly affect the happiness of mankind'.[2]
The line with which Rousseau opens the discourse is a quote in Latin from Horace's On the Art of Poetry (line 25), which translates into: 'We are deceived by the appearance of right.'
Response[edit]
Rousseau anticipated that his response would cause 'a universal outcry against me', but held that 'a few sensible men' would appreciate his position. He holds that this will be because he has dismissed the concerns of 'men born to be in bondage to the opinions of the society in which they live in.' In this he includes 'wits' and 'those who follow fashion'. He maintains that those who reflexively support traditional thinking merely 'play the free-thinker and the philosopher', and had they lived during the age of the French Wars of Religion these same people would have joined the Catholic League and 'been no more than fanatics' advocating the use of force to suppress Protestants.[3] Oddly Rousseau, who claims to be motivated by the idea of bringing forth something to promote the happiness of mankind, sets most of humanity as his adversaries.[1]
Scholar Jack Black points out that this is because Rousseau wants his work to outlive him. Rousseau holds that if he wrote things that were popular with the fashionable and trendy, his work would fade with the passing of fashion, 'To live beyond one's century, then, one must appeal to principles that are more lasting and to readers who are less thoughtless.'[1]
Rousseau's argument was controversial, and drew a great number of responses. One from critic Jules Lemaître calling the instant deification of Rousseau as 'one of the strongest proofs of human stupidity.' Rousseau himself answered five of his critics in the two years or so after he won the prize. Among these five answers were replies to Stanisław Leszczyński, King of Poland, M. l'Abbe Raynal, and the 'Last Reply' to M. Charles Bordes. These responses provide clarification for Rousseau's argument in the Discourse, and begin to develop a theme he further advances in the Discourse on Inequality – that misuse of the arts and sciences is one case of a larger theme, that man, by nature good, is corrupted by civilization. Inequality, luxury, and the political life are identified as especially harmful.
Rousseau's own assessment of the essay was ambiguous. In one letter he described it as one of his 'principal writings,' and one of only three in which his philosophical system is developed (the others being the Discourse on Inequality and Emile), but in another instance he evaluated it as 'at best mediocre.'[4]
Notes[edit]
- ^ abcdefJeff J.S. Black (January 16, 2009). Rousseau's Critique of Science: A Commentary on the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts. Lexington Books.
- ^Todd Breyfogle, ed. (1999). Literary Imagination, Ancient and Modern: Essays in Honor of David Grene. University of Chicago Press.
- ^Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1973). The Social Contract and Discourses. G.D.H. Cole (trans.). Everyman's Library.
- ^Campbell (1975), 9.
References[edit]
- Blair Campbell. 'Montaigne and Rousseau's First Discourse.' The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1. (Mar., 1975), pp. 7–31.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract and Discourses. Trans. G.D.H. Cole. London: Everyman, 1993. Introduction referenced for general background.
External links[edit]
| Wikiquote has quotations related to: Discourse on the Arts and Sciences |
- Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, full text in HTML format, at the Online Library of Liberty.
Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (French: Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes), also commonly known as the 'Second Discourse', is a work by philosopherJean-Jacques Rousseau.
Rousseau first exposes in this work his conception of a human state of nature, broadly believed to be a hypothetical thought exercise and of human perfectibility, an early idea of progress. He then explains the way, according to him, people may have established civil society, which leads him to present private property as the original source and basis of all inequality.
Context[edit]
The text was written in 1754 in response to a prize competition of the Academy of Dijon answering the prompt: What is the origin of inequality among people, and is it authorized by natural law? Rousseau did not win with his treatise (as he had for the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences); a canon of Besançon by the name of François Xavier Talbert (l'abbé Talbert) did. Rousseau published the text in 1755.[1]
Argument[edit]
Rousseau's text is divided into four main parts: the dedication, the preface, an extended inquiry into the nature of the human being and another inquiry into the evolution of the human species within society. Also, there is an appendix that elaborates primarily on eighteenth century anthropological research throughout the text.[2] Rousseau discusses two types of inequality: natural, or physical inequality, and ethical, or moral inequality. Natural inequality involves differences between one human's body and that of another—it is a product of nature. Rousseau is not concerned with this type of inequality because he claims it is not the root of the inequality found in civil society. Instead, he argues moral inequality is unique to civil society and is evinced in differences in 'wealth, nobility or rank, power and personal merit.'[3] This type of inequality is established by convention. Rousseau appears to take a cynical view of civil society, where man has strayed from his 'natural state' of individual independence and freedom to satisfy his individual needs and desires.
His discussion begins with an analysis of a natural man who bears, along with some developed animal species, instincts for self-preservation—a non-destructive love of self (amour de soi même)—and a 'natural repugnance' to suffering—a natural pity or compassion. Natural man acts only for his own sake and avoids conflicts with other animals (and humans). Rousseau's natural man is more or less like any other animal, with 'self-preservation being his chief and almost sole concern' and 'the only goods he recognizes in the universe' being food, a female, and sleep.. Rousseau's man is a 'savage' man. He is a loner and self-sufficient. Any battle or skirmish was only to protect himself. The natural man was in prime condition, fast, and strong, capable of caring for himself. He killed only for his own self-preservation.
Natural man's anthropological distinction (from the animal kingdom) is based on his capacity for 'perfectibility' and innate sense of his freedom. The former, although translated as 'perfectibility,' has nothing to do with a drive for perfection or excellence, which might confuse it with virtue ethics. Instead, perfectibility describes how humans can learn by observing others. Since human being lacks reason, this is not a discursive reasoning, but more akin to the neurological account of mirror neurons. Human freedom does not mean the capacity to choose, which would require reason, but instead the ability to refrain from instinct. Only with such a capacity can humans acquire new habits and practices.
The most important feature of Rousseau's natural man is that he lacks reason, in contrast to most of the Western intellectual tradition. Rousseau claims natural man does not possess reason or language (in which reason's generation is rooted) or society—and these three things are mutually-conditioning, such that none can come into being without the others.
Rousseau's natural man significantly differs from, and is a response to, that of Hobbes; Rousseau says as much at various points throughout his work. He thinks that Hobbes conflates human being in the state of nature with human being in civil society. Unlike Hobbes's natural man, Rousseau's is not motivated by fear of death because he cannot conceive of that end; thus fear of death already suggests a movement out of the state of nature. Also, this natural man, unlike Hobbes's, is not in constant state of fear and anxiety. Rousseau's natural man possesses a few qualities that allow him to distinguish himself from the animals over a long period of time.
The process by which natural man becomes civilized is uncertain in the Discourse, but it could have had two or three different causes. The most likely causes are environmental, such that humans came into closer proximity and began cohabitation, which in turn facilitated the development of reason and language. Equally, human 'perfectibility' could explain this change in the nature of the human being.[4] Rousseau is not really interested in explaining the development, but acknowledges its complexity.[5]
What is important is that with primitive social existence (preceding civil society), humans gain 'self-esteem' ('amour propre')[6] and most of the rest of Rousseau's account is based on this. Rousseau's critique of civil society is primarily based on psychological features of civil man, with amour propre pushing individuals to compare themselves with others, to gain a sense of self corresponding to this, and to dissolve natural man's natural pity.
The beginning of part two dramatically imagines some lone errant soul planting the stakes that first establish private property: 'The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society'.[7] But Rousseau then clarifies that this moment was presaged by a series of environmental and rational conditions that made it possible. For Rousseau, even the concept of private property required a series of other concepts in order to be formed.
Dedication[edit]
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The work is dedicated to the state of Geneva, Rousseau's birthplace. On the face of the dedication, he praises Geneva as a good, if not perfect, republic. The qualities he picks out for praise include the stability of its laws and institutions, the community spirit of its inhabitants, and its good relations with neighboring states, neither threatening them nor threatened by them, and the well-behaved women of Geneva. However, this is not how Geneva truly was. This is the type of regime Rousseau wished for. The epistle dedicatory is a highly ironic and idealized version of the Geneva Rousseau really wanted. Also, his description is in great contrast with Paris, where he had spent many years previous to writing this discourse, and which he had left bitterly. Thus, his description of Geneva is in part a statement against Paris.[citation needed]
Citations[edit]
- ^Peter Gay, 'The Basic Political Writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau', Hackett Press, 1987, p. 25
- ^Miller, Jean-Jacques Rousseau ; translated by Donald A. Cress ; introduced by James (1992). Discourse on the origin of inequality. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub.Co. ISBN9780872201507.
- ^Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1992). Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co. p. 66.
- ^Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1992). Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co. p. 26.
- ^Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1992). Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co. p. 43.
- ^Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1992). Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co. p. 46.
- ^Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1992). Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co. p. 44.
External links[edit]
- Discourse on Inequality public domain audiobook at LibriVox
Quotations related to Discourse on Inequality at Wikiquote
Works related to Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men at Wikisource
French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes