Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Introduction & Top Questions
Formative years
Controversy with Rameau
Major works of political philosophy
Years of seclusion and exile
The last decade

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A vintage encyclopedia page shows small type and scientific illustrations. The question What was Enlightenment? is written in old-fashioned blue lettering.

Aquatint portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, shown with white hair and wearing a high-collared shirt and buttoned coat, based on a painting by Garneray.

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau summary

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Agathon (centre) greeting guests in "Plato's Symposium" oil on canvas by Anselm Feuerbach, 1869; in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, Germany.

Philosophy 101

Related Questions

How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau connect the general will with popular sovereignty?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau define the general will?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau describe the state of nature in Discourse on the Origin of Inequality?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau distinguish natural inequality from social inequality?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau distinguish natural liberty from civil liberty?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau influence the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s childhood in Geneva shape his political ideas?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s love of nature influence Romanticism?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s political ideas compare with John Locke’s ideas?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s political ideas compare with Thomas Hobbes’s ideas?
How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s writings influence the leaders of the French Revolution?
How did Julie; or, The New Eloise help establish the sentimental novel?
How did Madame de Warens support Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s education and career?
How did the growth of families and neighboring communities lead to inequality in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s account?
What argument did Jean-Jacques Rousseau make in A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts?
What did Jean-Jacques Rousseau mean by a false social contract?
What did Jean-Jacques Rousseau mean by the idea that people are naturally good?
What educational ideas did Jean-Jacques Rousseau present in Émile?
What is the plot of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel Julie; or, The New Eloise?
What kind of articles did Jean-Jacques Rousseau contribute to the Encyclopédie?
What problem did Jean-Jacques Rousseau try to solve in The Social Contract?
What religious beliefs did Jean-Jacques Rousseau express in The Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar?
What role did civil religion have in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s political theory?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau believe children should be educated away from corrupting society?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau believe people could be free by obeying laws?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau believe that civilization could corrupt people?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau believe that legitimate laws must be made by citizens?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau consider private property a major cause of inequality?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau convert to Roman Catholicism as a young man?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau spend much of his later life in exile and seclusion?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau think a lawgiver was needed to help establish a republic?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau think early civil society benefited rich people more than poor people?
Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau think personal interests could conflict with the general will?
Why did critics accuse Jean-Jacques Rousseau of supporting authoritarian or totalitarian government?
Why was Julie; or, The New Eloise more successful during Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s lifetime than The Social Contract?
Why was Émile condemned by authorities in France and Geneva?
Why is Jean-Jacques Rousseau famous?
What influenced Graham Greene’s conversion to Roman Catholicism?
What is Albert Camus known for?
Where was Albert Camus from?
What philosophies and ideas did Albert Camus discuss in his work?
What are some of Albert Camus’s most famous works?
Why is Herbert Spencer famous?
Where was Jean-Paul Sartre from?
When did Jean-Paul Sartre meet Simone de Beauvoir?
Why is Michel Foucault important?

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External Websites

University of Pittsburgh - Representing our Childhood - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Great Thinkers - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Thompson Rivers University Pressbooks - Great Thinkers: Ideas That Shape the World and the Tools to Think with Them - The Enlightenment: Morals and Politics (1712Â–1797) Â— Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Musï¿½e protestant - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Towards Emancipation? - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
World History Encyclopedia - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712Â–78)
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
BBC - In Our Time - Rousseau on Education
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Biography of Jean Jacques Rousseau

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Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Swiss-born French philosopher

Written by

Maurice Cranston

Professor of Political Science, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, 1969–85. Biographer of Locke and Rousseau.

Maurice CranstonAll

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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

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History

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (born June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switzerland—died July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France) was a Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political theorist whose treatises and novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution and the Romantic generation. Rousseau was the least academic of modern philosophers and in many ways was the most influential. His thought marked the end of the European Enlightenment (the “Age of Reason”). He propelled political and ethical thinking into new channels. His...

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