biography
| name: |
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
|
pronunciation:
[roosoh]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1712–78)
|
| biography:
| Political philosopher, educationist, and essayist, born in Geneva, SW Switzerland. Largely self-taught, he carried on a variety of menial occupations, until after he moved to Paris in 1741, where he came to know Diderot and the encyclopédistes. In 1754 he wrote Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité et les fondements parmi les hommes (1755, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Amongst Men), emphasizing the natural goodness of human beings, and the corrupting influences of institutionalized life. He later moved to Luxembourg (1757), where he wrote his masterpiece, Du contrat social (1762, The Social Contract), a great influence on French revolutionary thought, introducing the slogan ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’. The same year he published his major work on education, Emile, in novel form, but its views on monarchy and governmental institutions forced him to flee to Switzerland, and then England, at the invitation of David Hume. There he wrote most of his Confessions (published posthumously, 1782). He returned to Paris in 1767, where he continued to write, but gradually became insane. He died in Ermenonville. |
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