The Life and Philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Brief Biography
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic and educational thought.
Who was Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
Born February 11, 1712, in Geneva, to two Huguenot fathers, Jean and Margaret Rousseau. Jean, a respected merchant, was a Frenchman of humble origins. Though he achieved considerable success in his business, he came from a social background where he was expected to perform the clerical and religious duties of the time. His mother Margaret was from a family of wealthy merchants, but was of Protestant Huguenot stock. Her father was a trader in sheep and cheese. Jean and Margaret Rousseau had nine children, but only five daughters survived to adulthood. Because of his humble beginnings, Rousseau was raised as a believer in the Enlightenment, in which religion was relegated to the private sphere. In 1738 Jean Rousseau joined the Geneva Reformed Church, to which his father had belonged.
Where did Jean-Jacques Rousseau live?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born on 16 October 1712, into a bourgeois family of Huguenots. He was the second of nine children and, like his father, was brought up in a Protestant family. Although as a youngster he wanted to become a painter, his father instead encouraged him to become a civil servant. Jean-Jacques’s childhood home was the house in the centre of the town of La Bourboule, where his father had his first business. His father was a judge in Geneva, and his mother, Jeanne-Marie, was the daughter of the magistrate of La Bourboule, Denis Lamartine. From 1732 to 1736 Jean-Jacques attended the Latin school of Geneva. From 1738 to 1741, he studied theology at the Cistercian monastery of St Maurice near Bern. He studied the Bible at the Latin school of St Pierre de Champernon.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's education
was quite irregular. According to Rousseau, he attended a school for two years, then was given his own dwelling and given his own tutors, until the latter were paid off. During this time he composed music. In his autobiographical Confessions he says that he did not have a formal education. At least one writer has said that Rousseau attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand but only for three weeks. Some historians have argued that Rousseau was not a student in any school at all, but had been tutored by his father, and spent most of his life at his family's country estate. Rousseau's extended period of education would have consisted of such subjects as Latin and the history of the classical world. His principal philosophical influence was the education of his father by Voltaire.
Rousseau's Philosophical Beliefs
In 1762, as the part of the administration of the Grand-Duchy of Geneva, he was introduced to a young philosophy student, Michel Leiris. They formed a close and lasting friendship which lasted until Rousseau's death. They discussed a wide range of issues and disagreed on few, the most important being their mutual hostility to religion and an unwillingness to divorce themselves from their past. In the same year he married Geneviève Julia La Feuillée. He had five children, Jean-Jacques (1765–1778), Mathieu (1766–1776), Jean-Jacques II (1768–1779), Julia (1770–1784) and Elisabeth (1776–1822). While living in Geneva, Rousseau acquired a deep insight into human nature and character. As a philosopher, he addressed himself to individuals and their tendencies to participate in social life.
Rousseau's Influence on the Enlightenment
Rousseau grew up in a Protestant family in Geneva. By his own account, he was a rather mischievous child, with a proclivity to arrogance, and a lack of any innate affinity with his parents. As a young adult, he and his brother moved to France, where Rousseau embraced the culture of Paris. The spirit of the time in Paris brought Rousseau an upsurge of self-confidence and vitality. From this time forward he held a supreme self-confidence, though still somewhat impervious to the positive influence of others. This did not always hamper his career as a philosopher. However, this may have resulted in his writing on his own thoughts, rather than any criticism of others.
Rousseau's Influence on the French Revolution
When the French revolution was at its climax in 1789, many were in support of this new found passion for liberty. Some believed that the freedom and equality inspired by the revolution should be reserved only for those who had the privilege of owning property, with even the poorest people denied the right to vote.
Conclusion
The French Revolution of 1789 can be seen as a catalyst for the development of Enlightenment principles and ideas into a new form of democratic governance, which became the driving force of the nationalistic movements of the nineteenth century. It was in 1789 that the French, with the help of British assistance, overthrew King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and established the first modern government of France, known as the French Republic.
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