Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer.
122 Facts About Jean-Jacques Rousseau
2.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile, or On Education is an educational treatise on the place of the individual in society.
3.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva, which was at the time a city-state and a Protestant associate of the Swiss Confederacy.
4.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was proud that his family, of the moyen order, had voting rights in the city.
5.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was shot by order of the Little Council.
6.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that "A Genevan watchmaker is a man who can be introduced anywhere; a Parisian watchmaker is only fit to talk about watches".
7.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was raised by her uncle Samuel Bernard, a Calvinist preacher.
8.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau cared for Suzanne after her father, Jacques, who had run into trouble with the legal and religious authorities for fornication and having a mistress, died in his early 30s.
9.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau married Rousseau's father at the age of 31.
10.
The young Jean-Jacques Rousseau was told a fabricated story about the situation in which young love had been denied by a disapproving patriarch but later prevailed, resulting in two marriages uniting the families on the same day.
11.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's mother died of puerperal fever nine days after his birth, which he later described as "the first of my misfortunes".
12.
When Jean-Jacques Rousseau was five, his father sold the house that the family had received from his mother's relatives.
13.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was exposed to class politics in this environment, as the artisans often agitated in a campaign of resistance against the privileged class running Geneva.
14.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau had no recollection of learning to read, but he remembered how when he was five or six his father encouraged his love of reading:.
15.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's reading of escapist stories had an effect on him; he later wrote that they "gave me bizarre and romantic notions of human life, which experience and reflection have never been able to cure me of".
16.
When Jean-Jacques Rousseau was ten, his father, an avid hunter, got into a legal quarrel with a wealthy landowner on whose lands he had been caught trespassing.
17.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau remarried, and from that point Jean-Jacques saw little of him.
18.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was left with his maternal uncle, who packed him, along with his own son, Abraham Bernard, away to board for two years with a Calvinist minister in a hamlet outside Geneva.
19.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was always deeply moved by religious services, for a time even dreamed of becoming a Protestant minister.
20.
Virtually all our information about Jean-Jacques Rousseau's youth has come from his posthumously published Confessions, in which the chronology is somewhat confused, though recent scholars have combed the archives for confirming evidence to fill in the blanks.
21.
At age 13, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was apprenticed first to a notary and then to an engraver who beat him.
22.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a noblewoman of Protestant background who was separated from her husband.
23.
In converting to Catholicism, both de Warens and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were likely reacting to Calvinism's insistence on the total depravity of man.
24.
When Jean-Jacques Rousseau reached 20, de Warens took him as her lover, while intimate with the steward of her house.
25.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau had been an indifferent student, but during his 20s, which were marked by long bouts of hypochondria, he applied himself in earnest to the study of philosophy, mathematics, and music.
26.
In 1742, Jean-Jacques Rousseau moved to Paris to present the Academie des Sciences with a new system of numbered musical notation he believed would make his fortune.
27.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's system, intended to be compatible with typography, is based on a single line, displaying numbers representing intervals between notes and dots and commas indicating rhythmic values.
28.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau befriended Denis Diderot that year, connecting over the discussion of literary endeavors.
29.
From 1743 to 1744, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had an honorable but ill-paying post as a secretary to the Comte de Montaigue, the French ambassador to Venice.
30.
At first, they did not live together, though later Jean-Jacques Rousseau took Therese and her mother in to live with him as his servants, and himself assumed the burden of supporting her large family.
31.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that he persuaded Therese to give each of the newborns up to a foundling hospital, for the sake of her "honor".
32.
Ten years later, Jean-Jacques Rousseau made inquiries about the fate of his son, but no record could be found.
33.
When Jean-Jacques Rousseau subsequently became celebrated as a theorist of education and child-rearing, his abandonment of his children was used by his critics, including Voltaire and Edmund Burke, as the basis for arguments ad hominem.
34.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas were the result of an almost obsessive dialogue with writers of the past, filtered in many cases through conversations with Diderot.
35.
In 1749, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was paying daily visits to Diderot, who had been thrown into the fortress of Vincennes under a lettre de cachet for opinions in his "Lettre sur les aveugles", that hinted at materialism, a belief in atoms, and natural selection.
36.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau had read about an essay competition sponsored by the Academie de Dijon to be published in the Mercure de France on the theme of whether the development of the arts and sciences had been morally beneficial.
37.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that while walking to Vincennes, he had a revelation that the arts and sciences were responsible for the moral degeneration of mankind, who were basically good by nature.
38.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote both the words and music of his opera Le devin du village, which was performed for King Louis XV in 1752.
39.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau turned down several other advantageous offers, sometimes with a brusqueness bordering on truculence that gave offense and caused him problems.
40.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as noted above, was an enthusiastic supporter of the Italians against Jean-Philippe Rameau and others, making an important contribution with his Letter on French Music.
41.
On returning to Geneva in 1754, Jean-Jacques Rousseau reconverted to Calvinism and regained his official Genevan citizenship.
42.
In 1755, Jean-Jacques Rousseau completed his second major work, the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, which elaborated on the arguments of the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences.
43.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau pursued an unconsummated romantic attachment with the 25-year-old Sophie d'Houdetot, which partly inspired his epistolary novel Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise.
44.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was condemned from the pulpit by the Archbishop of Paris, his books were burned and warrants were issued for his arrest.
45.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau shall be master here more than I I shall treat him like my own son.
46.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau later expressed regret that he had not replied to Voltaire's invitation.
47.
Subsequently, Jean-Jacques Rousseau accepted an invitation to reside in Motiers, fifteen miles from Neuchatel.
48.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, touched by the help he received from Frederick, stated that from then onwards he took a keen interest in Frederick's activities.
49.
Frederick made no known reply, but commented to Keith that Jean-Jacques Rousseau had given him a "scolding".
50.
For more than two years Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived at Motiers, spending his time in reading and writing and meeting visitors such as James Boswell.
51.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote back asking to be excused due to his inability to sit for a long time due to his ailment.
52.
Since he wanted to remain in Switzerland, Jean-Jacques Rousseau decided to accept an offer to move to a tiny island, the Ile de St-Pierre, having a solitary house.
53.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau replied, requesting permission to extend his stay, and offered to be incarcerated in any place within their jurisdiction with only a few books in his possession and permission to walk occasionally in a garden while living at his own expense.
54.
The Senate's response was to direct Jean-Jacques Rousseau to leave the island, and all Bernese territory, within twenty four hours.
55.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau had invitations to Potsdam from Frederick, to Corsica from Paoli, to Lorraine from Saint-Lambert, to Amsterdam from Rey the publisher, and to England from David Hume.
56.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau subsequently decided to accept Hume's invitation to go to England.
57.
However, both Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau wanted the other person to take the initiative, so the two did not meet.
58.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau became so excited during the performance that he leaned too far and almost fell out of the box; Hume observed that the King and Queen were looking at Jean-Jacques Rousseau more than at the performance.
59.
Gradually articles critical of Jean-Jacques Rousseau started appearing in the British press; Jean-Jacques Rousseau felt that Hume, as his host, ought to have defended him.
60.
Further, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was aggrieved to find that Hume had been lodging in London with Francois Tronchin, son of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's enemy in Geneva.
61.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau now decided that there was a conspiracy afoot to defame him.
62.
On learning that Jean-Jacques Rousseau had denounced him to his Parisian friends, Hume sent a copy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's long letter to Madame de Boufflers.
63.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau replied stating that, in her estimate, Hume's alleged participation in the composition of Horace Walpole's faux letter was the reason for Rousseau's anger.
64.
When Hume learnt that Jean-Jacques Rousseau was writing the Confessions, he assumed that the present dispute would feature in the book.
65.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau had taken an assumed name, but was recognized, and a banquet in his honor was held by the city of Amiens.
66.
Around this time, Jean-Jacques Rousseau started developing feelings of paranoia, anxiety, and of a conspiracy against him.
67.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau now supported himself financially by copying music, and continued his study of botany.
68.
The police called on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who agreed to stop the readings.
69.
Also in 1772, Rousseau began writing his Dialogues: Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques, which was another attempt to reply to his critics.
70.
In 1766, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had impressed Hume with his physical prowess by spending ten hours at night on the deck in severe weather during the journey by ship from Calais to Dover while Hume was confined to his bunk.
71.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was unable to dodge both the carriage and the dog, and was knocked down by the Great Dane.
72.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau seems to have suffered a concussion and neurological damage.
73.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's health began to decline; Rousseau's friend Corancez described the appearance of certain symptoms which indicate that Rousseau started suffering from epileptic seizures after the accident.
74.
In 1777, Jean-Jacques Rousseau received a royal visitor, when the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II came to meet him.
75.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau ordered books from Paris on grasses, mosses and mushrooms, and made plans to complete his unfinished Emile and Sophie and Daphnis and Chloe.
76.
The essay he wrote in response led to one of the central themes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's thought, which was that perceived social and cultural progress had in fact led only to the moral degradation of humanity.
77.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau based his political philosophy on contract theory and his reading of Thomas Hobbes.
78.
In contrast, Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that there was no explanation for why this would be the case, as there would have been no conflict or property.
79.
In common with other philosophers of the day, Jean-Jacques Rousseau looked to a hypothetical "state of nature" as a normative guide.
80.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau did not believe humans to be innately superior to other species.
81.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau asserted that the stage of human development associated with what he called "savages" was the best or optimal in human development, between the less-than-optimal extreme of brute animals on the one hand and the extreme of decadent civilization on the other.
82.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's writings are purposely ambiguous concerning the formation of these processes to the point that mediation is always intrinsically part of humanity's development.
83.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau noted that whereas "the savage lives within himself, sociable man, always outside himself, can only live in the opinion of others".
84.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation.
85.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau opposed the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly.
86.
Much subsequent controversy about Jean-Jacques Rousseau's work has hinged on disagreements concerning his claims that citizens constrained to obey the general will are thereby rendered free:.
87.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is, of course, sharply aware that men have selfish and sectional interests which will lead them to try to oppress others.
88.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau develops his theory in an almost mathematical manner, deriving statements from the initial thesis that man must keep close to nature.
89.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau offers a wealth of economic thought in his writings, especially the Discourse on Inequality, Discourse on Political Economy, the Social Contract, as well as his constitutional projects for Corsica and Poland.
90.
Scholars generally accept that Jean-Jacques Rousseau offers a critique of modern wealth and luxury.
91.
Historian Istvan Hont modifies this reading by suggesting that Jean-Jacques Rousseau is both a critic and a thinker of commerce, leaving room for well-regulated commerce within a well-governed civil space.
92.
Political theorists Ryan Hanley and Hansong Li further argue that as a modern legislator, Jean-Jacques Rousseau seeks not to reject, but to tame utility, self-love, and even trade, finance, and luxury to serve the health of the republic.
93.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau felt that children learn right and wrong through experiencing the consequences of their acts rather than through physical punishment.
94.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau became an early advocate of developmentally appropriate education; his description of the stages of child development mirrors his conception of the evolution of culture.
95.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau recommends that the young adult learn a manual skill such as carpentry, which requires creativity and thought, will keep him out of trouble, and will supply a fallback means of making a living in the event of a change of fortune.
96.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau anticipated the modern idea of the bourgeois nuclear family, with the mother at home taking responsibility for the household and for childcare and early education.
97.
Unlike many of the more agnostic Enlightenment philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau affirmed the necessity of religion.
98.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau repudiated the doctrine of original sin, which plays a large part in Calvinism.
99.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's deism differed from the usual kind in its emotionality.
100.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau saw the presence of God in the creation as good, and separate from the harmful influence of society.
101.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a moderately successful composer of music, who wrote seven operas as well as music in other forms, and contributed to music theory.
102.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau composed several noted motets, some of which were sung at the Concert Spirituel in Paris.
103.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau took formal instruction in music at the house of Francoise-Louise de Warens.
104.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau housed Rousseau on and off for about 13 years, giving him jobs and responsibilities.
105.
In 1742, Jean-Jacques Rousseau developed a system of musical notation that was compatible with typography and numbered.
106.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau presented his invention to the Academie Des Sciences, but they rejected it, praising his efforts and pushing him to try again.
107.
In 1743, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote his first opera, Les Muses galantes, which was first performed in 1745.
108.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that Italian music was superior based on the principle that melody must have priority over harmony.
109.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued for musical freedom, and changed people's attitudes towards music.
110.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's works were acknowledged by composers such as Christoph Willibald Gluck and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
111.
The concept was an important aspect of the more radical 17th-century republican tradition of Spinoza, from whom Jean-Jacques Rousseau differed in important respects, but not in his insistence on the importance of equality:.
112.
When in the depths of the French Revolution the Jacobin clubs all over France regularly deployed Jean-Jacques Rousseau when demanding radical reforms.
113.
The revolutionaries were inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau to introduce Deism as the new official civil religion of France:.
114.
However, Will and Ariel Durant have opined that Jean-Jacques Rousseau had a definite political influence on America.
115.
The first to criticize Jean-Jacques Rousseau were his fellow Philosophes, above all, Voltaire.
116.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau disagreed with his ideas about female education, declaring that women are a dependent lot.
117.
Historian Jacques Barzun states that, contrary to myth, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was no primitivist; for him:.
118.
The fault and misery of Jean-Jacques Rousseau was what we easily name by a single word, Egoism.
119.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau had not perfected himself into victory over mere Desire; a mean Hunger, in many sorts, was still the motive principle of him.
120.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was considered to have advocated just the sort of invasive tampering with human nature which the totalitarian regimes of mid-century had tried to instantiate.
121.
The German writers Goethe, Schiller, and Herder have stated that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's writings inspired them.
122.
Herder regarded Jean-Jacques Rousseau to be his "guide", and Schiller compared Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Socrates.