The Philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Genevan philosopher writing in French, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote essentially: - Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (1750) - Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among men (1755) - The Social Contract (1762) - Emile – On Education (1762) Rousseau has been subject to multiple interpretations, often contradictory and caricatured and beyond these, critics have beens sometimes simplistic, but the attentive reader discovers in these works an original and coherent thinker, which was fundamentally interested in the real contract, and repressing the world of violence. Rousseau’s key political ideas was the general will rather than the social contract. Political society is seen by Rousseau as involving the total voluntary subjection of every individual to the collective general will; this being both the sole source of legitimate sovereignty and something that cannot but be directed towards the common good. Rousseau and the natural man theory: So...
