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Rousseau First Discourse
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The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau Glossary agreement: The item that Rousseau calls a convention is an event, whereas what we call ‘conventions’ (setting aside the irrelevant ‘convention’ = ‘professional get-together’) are.

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One of the most respected translations of this key work of 18th-century philosophy, this text includes a brief introduction to the two works as well as abundant notes that range from simple explanations to speculative interpretations.

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Published October 15th 1969 by Bedford/St. Martin's (first published October 15th 1750)

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Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes/Discours sur les sciences et les arts

0312694407 (ISBN13: 9780312694401)

English

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Aug 06, 2013Karl-O rated it liked it

Shelves: philosophy, non-fiction, politics, classics

Jean Jacques Rousseau The Second Discourse Pdf Viewer

This was a peculiar reading. When I read it first, I had a reaction similar to that of Voltaire when Rousseau sent him a manuscript of one of his later books, The Social Contract:
'I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it.'
This was...more

Nov 07, 2017Alan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In this early essay written twenty years before Confessions, Rousseau criticizes learning and culture which lead to less ethical behavior. He prefers early Rome founded by shepherds to cultured Rome, degenerating under Ovid, Catullus and Martial, that 'crowd of obscene writers whose names alone arouse shame. Rome, once the cradle of virtue, became the theater of crime.' 'Cette capital du monde tombe enfin sous le joug qu'elle avait imposé à tout de peuples...'(15) The capital of the world fell u...more

honestly the thought here is boring and common and when he does ''purposefully'' contradict himself its rarely worth exploring............wig!

Rousseau was the shadow of the Enlightenment. During a time in which natural philosophy morphed into physics, Diderot composed his Encyclopedie and Europe reinvented philosophy on the iconoclastic introspection of Descartes, Rousseau was that little fucker in the corner giving the finger to everyone. He thought it was all just some nonsense.
But not in a sinister way. Rousseau simply rejected the assumption that civilization was a boon to humankind. Civilization is a shackling chain to the free m...more

Jan 17, 2016Thomas rated it really liked it

Was Rousseau the first one to blame it on society? Probably not, but I suppose few have expressed their complaints about culture with such eloquence. I once had a teacher who liked to ask his students to 'go out on a limb, so I can saw it off.' Rousseau needs no encouragement in that direction: his confidence is overweening, and the limb does get a bit thin at points (his anthropology needs a good overhaul, for starters.) But I love his passion -- I wish all political writing were as heartfelt a...more

Aug 23, 2013Skyler Myers rated it liked it

Recommends it for: People interested in Rousseau and of intellectual writing

Shelves: academic, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, nonfiction

PROs:
* Nice compilation of Rousseau's famous discourses
CONs:
* Brings nothing new to the table
I enjoyed both discourses, agreeing with the second more than the first, but finding the first more entertaining than the second. Rousseau goes off topic quite a bit, but even his off topic rants are interesting.

Ridiculous at times, contradictory more than once (this is Rousseau, after all), but Rousseau still had a knack for highlighting and making the reader ruminate on the more pernicious aspects of contemporary society. You'll be reading a given paragraph and Rousseau will make some sweeping statement about human nature (bonus points if it's misogynistic; thankfully, this is a lot less unbearable in that respect than his letter to D'Alembert) that still has at its core a profound observation on how...more

Jan 07, 2016Eugenia Turculet rated it really liked it

At the first sight, The First and Second Discourses contradict each other. However, one must not be fooled by the apparent contradiction. Rousseau is, without doubt, a romantic, and he is a bit pessimistic, as he views the development of the society as detrimental to human felicity in both the first and the second discourse. If you happen to read this book, which is an easy read, please do read the introduction and Rousseau's notes, as they will allow you to grasp concepts and make connections b...more

I thought this was too tough for me to even comprehend when I first began reading it. Then, it just clicked and I loved it. I even wrote a paper on it (in comparison to Kant's works) and my teacher thought it was a really great paper (the only correction I had to make was to cut up some run-on sentences) and this was for a grad-level class! Yay! However, I did disagree with some of Rousseau's arguments, but I am not going to discuss them in this here review space.

What can I say? I enjoyed reading this.

'Do you not know that numbers of your fellow-creatures are starving, for want of what you have too much of? You ought to have had the express and universal consent of mankind, before appropriating more of the common subsistence than you needed for your own maintenance. Destitute of valid reasons to justify and sufficient strength to defend himself, able to crush individuals with ease, but easily crushed himself by a troop of bandits, one against all, and incapable, on account of mutual jealousy,...more

Jul 01, 2018Esther rated it really liked it

These two winning essays are what initially brought Rousseau to public attention. Later, he gathers his thoughts and puts a full political philosophy together in 'The Social Contract'.
Both have a very strong polemical tone, and Rousseau clearly sought to provoke his readers. In the first essay, he rails against the arts and sciences, and even more so against the self satisfaction of his time in surveying the progress in these two fields. In the second, he draws his ahistorical state of nature to...more

Oct 03, 2017Jonatan Sotelo rated it liked it · review of another edition

Me gustó más el discurso sobre la desigualdad entre los hombres que el que hace referencia al restablecimiento de las ciencias y las artes.
Obra fundamental para comprender la fundación y consolidación de la sociedad y como esta afectó al estado de naturaleza.

Our philosophy teacher has always spoken of Rousseau's First Discourse with some kind of irony and I think this passed on to me cause I didn't really take Rousseau's work seriously when I started reading. But soon enough I realized that was a great book - even though its language is quite old - I started to see how it related to the time when Rousseau had lived. Being able to see the big picture when reading a philosophical work is what I simply LOVE.

Oct 02, 2011Jean Tessier added it · review of another edition

Back in high school, I had to read the 'Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men', but I had never read the first part of the book we had. Now, in part out of curiosity and in part out of nostalgia, I decided to take a look at it and maybe even re-read the second discourse. I wanted to see what I might have missed the first time around.
Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
Already, Rousseau has idea that man is fundamentally good and that it is civilization that makes him bad. He up...more

Jan 05, 2018Scarlett rated it liked it

Rousseau is the raving madman on the corner, ranting against science, art and civilization, but he is the raving madman you cannot help but listen to and perhaps even not entirely disagree with.

POL 3235W

Rousseau certainly argues in favor of some unusual positions in this book, and while not all of his logic has stood the test of time, both discourses were still immensely thought provoking.

Nov 09, 2017Louise9 rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Book for school, it was interesting but I couldn't get into it

First Discourse

Only read the 2nd Discourse.

'Discourse on the Sciences and Arts: 3/10:
Unless this is a joke (and it might very well be), this is horrible stuff.
The one thing of value I can find in here is 'beware of the dangers of new, misunderstood technologies,' a warning that has been uttered many times, in more convincing ways, by better thinkers.
The rest of this is pure rubbish. It is intellectually dishonest (he regularly misquotes his authorities, or misrepresents facts to back up his argument, which the editor finds interesting...more

Mar 09, 2016Natacha Pavlov rated it did not like it · review of another edition

OH.MON.DIEU; I couldn’t wait to get through this one! For all the hoopla I didn't expect to be this disappointed, so I narrowed it down to a few things:
**He praises nature and the ‘primitive man’ (French: l’homme sauvage), as if they themselves are devoid of property and self-consciousness (the latter of which in itself can be construed as very insulting, but likely quite reflective of the times).
**He seems to be favorable to the Bible and even says the spiritual texts are the only ones he nev...more

'We are deceived by the appearance of rightness.'
~ from On the Art of Poetry, by Horace
In this discourse, as a devil's advocate maybe, Rousseau goes against the popular current of his time to play the part of a conscience warning against the progress in arts and sciences as new luxury that corrupts morality, promotes inauthenticity, and disguise our state of slavery by creating new forms of dependence. A large portion is spent on analyzing the civilized, prideful, and affable man who possesses '...more

Feb 21, 2014Mary rated it Rousseau first and second discourses

it was amazing

Shelves: modernism-post-modernism, philosophy, classics

Rousseau's trenchant criticism of the Enlightenment and all the advances in the arts and sciences of XVIIIth century western culture is a perfect example of Enlightenment reasoning. These two discourses are answers to essay competitions run by the Academy of Dijon; the first essay won the prize and launched Rousseau on a writing career.
Rousseau says that the wonderful things we get with modernism actually enslave us because we desire them so much. For Rousseau, man was content at an earlier poi...more

May 31, 2016Vrenda Pr rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Principal énfasis en los principios a priori de la razón según Rousseau; amor de sí mismo y piedad, como principios casi irreconocibles de la pasión originaria. Aquí me detengo y me dispongo a profundizar sobre la estrecha lectura que se permite hacer sobre el amor-de-sí-mismo de aquel hombre originario que lucha contra el orden civil. Algo que me costó un poco, éste plano metafísico que plantea, frente al plano material y aquel que despertó mis anhelos revolucionarios.
Y acá aclaro que éstos 'a...more

'Integrity is even dearer to good men than erudition to the scholarly.' 34
'The needs of the body are the foundations of society, those of the mind make it pleasant.' 36
'Peoples, know once and for all that nature wanted to keep you from being harmed by knowledge just as a mother wrests a dangerous weapon from her child's hands; that all the secrets she hides from you are so many evils from which she protects you, and that the difficulty you find in educating yourselves is not the least of her ben...more

While Rousseau didn't have the benefit of advances in the understanding of human history in centuries subsequent to his work, his uncompromisingly critical overview of human civilization contains an exceptional amount of insight into humanity. Although he doesn't quite delve into overt cynicism, he lambasts the entire intellectual basis of the Enlightenment, as well as all of the existing power structures he witnessed in his time. The influence of his text can be seen in the language of the Decl...more

Jun 17, 2016Jordi Polo Carres rated it really liked it

Al principio era muy esceptico de sus argumentos, especialmente el primer discurso no convencio en absoluto.
Pero en el segundo discurso se pone mucho mas interesante y aunque creo que sus argumentos son muy debiles (simplemente se imagina como seria la vida de la humanidad en la naturaleza pero no tiene pruebas por ejemplo) son argumentos interesantes que me hicieron pensar.
Por ejemplo, a mas sofisticacion, mas artificiales somos, y mas infelices por no poder mostrarnos a los demas tal y como so...more

**Date finished reading is an approximation. Rousseau was rather entertaining, if only because it was difficult to tease out what he was saying, but I am not a huge fan of him. He tends to get on my nerves sometimes. Nevertheless, I need to read more of his books. They were important influences on many other authors. It was fascinating to me to see what he really said, versus what I'd always been told he said. The idea of the 'noble savage' is largely false - his savages were not noble.

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains an important figure in the history of philosophy, both because of his contributions to political philosophy and moral psychology and because of his influence on later thinkers. Rousseau's own view of philosophy and philosophers was firmly negative, seeing philosophers as the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, as apologists for various forms of tyranny, and as pl...more

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Frontispiece and title page of an edition of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality (1754), published by Marc-Michel Rey in 1755 in Holland.

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.

The Second Disc

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]

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

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