Lecture 2 - Rouseau

Question 1

What are 4 ways in which Rousseau differs from other philosophes?

Answer 1

1. He was a protestant and a citizen of Geneva
2. He didn’t have a middle- or upper-class background, nor formal education
3. He was an ancien, rather than a moderne
4. Rousseau argues that the progress in the arts and sciences has not led to growth from an ethical perspective

Question 2

What are ‘anciens’ and ‘modernes’?

Answer 2

Modernes: thought that it was no longer a good idea to try to emulate the classics -> the 17th century should ‘find its own voice’
Anciens: still see value in emulation of the classics

Question 3

In which way does it show that Rousseau was an ancien?

Answer 3

He frequently references Athens, Sparta and Rome

Question 4

In which work did Rousseau launch the thesis that progress in the arts and sciences has not led to growth from an ethical perspective?

Answer 4

Discours sur les arts et les sciences

Question 5

How does Rousseau argue that progress in the arts and the sciences had not led to growth from an ethical perspective? What example does he provide to provide his point?

Answer 5

This progress alienates us from our orignal nature: culture does not civilize, it corrupts. Humans let themselves be guided by artificial inventions, leading to alienation from their nature.

Example: Athens was civilized, Sparta was rough, yet Sparta survived longer

Question 6

What is the idea of the ‘noble savage’?

Answer 6

People who are real, authentic and live close to nature, without the alienation that (complex) society brings

Question 7

What does Rousseau argue in his Discourse on Inequalty among Human Beings?

Answer 7

That humans have a natural equality

Question 8

Who does Rousseau attack in his Discourse on Inequality among Human Beings, and how does the do so?

Answer 8

Thomas Hobbes, especially his Leviathan

Hobbes had destroyed natural law tradition by arguing that humans are by their nature not sociable, and that life is a struggle of all against all to survive. Roussea felt that this was a perverse way of thinking: only when we a state of law and gain possesion, do we have something to quarrel over.

Question 9

What is natural law tradition?

Answer 9

The belief that the fact that human beings live together should be accounted for by the fact that they are by their nature sociable

Question 10

For which two reasons did the Discourse on the Arts and the Sciences + the Discourse on Inequality Among Human Beings have major influenc?

Answer 10

1. Rousseau rejected the idea of European superiority: all men are essentially equal
2. Rousseau sees the natural arch that many see as progress (hunter-gatherer -> agriculture -> commerce) not as one of progress but of alienation from natural freedom & equality

Question 11

Rousseau feels that it was time to get back to our own nature. Of which philosophical school is this reminiscent?

Answer 11

Sturm und Drang

Question 12

Which two elements did Rousseau introduce to get back to our own nature?

Answer 12

1. Du contrat social: on the political background
2. Émile, ou de l’éducation: on the importance of education

Question 13

What is Rousseau’s answer to subjugation to society without ending up as slaves?

Answer 13

Subjugating to ourselves by subjugating our will to the volonté générale

Question 14

What is the volonté générale? How does it differ from the will of all?

Answer 14

General will, aimed at the good of the people (bien public)
This differs from the will of all, which is a mere sum of the particular wills

Question 15

What is a major debate when it comes to Rousseau’s Social Contract? What is the danger of this?

Answer 15

What is the bien public, and who determines what it looks like?
This could lead to a totalitarian element: Rousseau argues that it could be necessary to enforce people who are unwilling to recognize what is good for them

Question 16

Who used Rousseau as an argument for a totalitarian government?

Answer 16

Robespierre used this element of Rousseau to justify the Terror

Question 17

What is the main message of Rousseau’s Émile?

Answer 17

Orignal authenticity can be recuperated through educating, by ensuring that a child’s character remains pure and intact.

Question 18

What is Rousseau’s stance on the moral decline that occurs when we become part of civilization?

Answer 18

This moral decline is in many ways inevitable when we enter civilization and leave our pure nature, as it is a result of amour de soi

Question 19

What is amour de soi? How does it contrast with amour propre?

Answer 19

Amour de soi is the degree of self-love needed to survive

Amour propre is a dangerous amount of self-love

Question 20

Which virtue should be coupled with amour de soi?

Answer 20

Pitié -> empathy, being able to see and feel things thorugh the eyes of another

Question 21

What should be the goal of proper education? What does this lead to?

Answer 21

The combiation of amour de soi and pitié -> leads to the capacity to fruitfully live together with human beings because you are able to put yourself in their position

Question 22

What is Rousseau’s major literary succes, which brought him great fame?

Answer 22

Julie ou la nouvelle Héloise

Question 23

What does the Nouvelle Héloise consist of? Of which phenomenon is this an exponent?

Answer 23

Consists of sentimental letters; this kind of work is an exponent of the so-called culture of sensibility

Question 24

What is the culture of sensibility?

Answer 24

A phenomenon during the Enlightenment in which feelings start to become very important, becoming an imortant attitude in literature and high society

Question 25

Which philosophical phenomenon is a product of this culture of sensibility? What does this phenomenon signify?

Answer 25

Romanticism, signifying a need for depth that could not be found in the empiricism of the Enlightenment

Question 26

Which philosophical insights does the culture of sensibility provide? (4)

Answer 26

1. It demonstrates the fact to which Romanticism is rooted in the Enligtenment, being not only a critique of it, but a product of it
2. Cultural sensibility influences the fight against slavery, on the basis of empathy
3. It leads to the idea that all human beings by their nature have certain rights, rooted in the popularization of the virtue of empathy
4. Novels are a powerful tool for the spread of morality, because they train our morality