Beide benen van Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an uncannily original philosopher who belongs to the Enlightenment as well as the Romantic Era.

In ‘Leviathan’ (1651), Thomas Hobbes refuted the conception that all human beings live in societies because of an “appetitus societatis”: a desire to live together. Hobbes claimed that the state of nature for human beings is eternal murder and mayhem; people are inherently bad creatures who take and defend their property with violence. According to Hobbes, the reason that we see so many societies in the world is that people agree to live under a sovereign in exchange for the protection of their property. The sovereign promises protection of property in exchange for peoples' swords.

In ‘Discours sur l'inégalité’ (1754), Rousseau claimed that Hobbes was wrong. He explained that the state of nature does not know a concept like property. Property is an invention of the state of law. As a consequence, it is the state of law that created ownership and inequality. The rise of culture is the cause of the rise of political inequality and decreased freedom.

In ‘Contrat Social’ (1762), Rousseau developed this exercise further. Since living in a society implies subjection of oneself, we must seek to subject ourselves to ourselves in order to maintain free and authentic. We do so by realising that our individual will is best served when subjected to the volonté générale: the general will of the people if they could choose their laws rationally and cooperatively.

Since Rousseau explained that inequality is rooted in the rise of sovereignty, he provided the bourgeoisie with the intellectual legacy to reject their political malrepresentation. It was the king who appointed the ministers. The nobility controlled the jurisdiction, clergy, and military. Rousseau stimulated the bourgeoisie to reclaim their freedom and equality, leading to the revolutionary slogan “liberté, égalité, fraternityé”. The declaration of the National Assembly by the Third Estate in 1789 was philosophically justified by the volonté générale. Therefore, Rousseau strongly belongs to the French Enlightenment.

For the Romantic Era, Rousseau also played an essential role. The idea that there is a deep, hidden, authentic part inside of us, comes from him. In ‘Confessions’ (1782, post mortem), he wrote all kinds of authenticities about himself, including even his sexual preferences. People felt the need to discover their subliminal emotions. People started fainting. They sought for the sublime experience in nature. People started swimming in the sea and climbing mountains. Although nature had been regarded solely as source of disasters and failed harvests, Rousseau opened the doors to view nature as an unexplored terrain to find our authentic selves.

In conclusion, Rousseau was not only part of the Enlightenment. He also laid foundations for the sublime experiences in the Romantic Era.