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** Historical Background[[image:http://www.antique-prints.de/shop/Media/Shop/5220.jpg width="176" height="230" align="right"]] **
==== Born in 1712 in Geneva, Switzerland. His father was a watchmaker and his mother, the daughter of a Calvinist preacher, died shortly after his birth. Rousseau's father got in trouble with the law when Rousseau was 10 and had to flee the city. This left Rousseau to be raised by his Aunt and Uncle. Three years after his Father left Rousseau became apprenticed to an engraver. In 1728 Rousseau left his master because he was violent. Rousseau went to Annecy where he met Louise de Warens. Warens converted Rousseau to Catholicism (he would later convert back to Calvinism). This resulted in him losing his Genevan citizenship. Rousseau eventually became romantically involved with Warens. This relationship would last for a couple of years. After, a couple of years Rouseau left Annecy and went to Paris were he became a composer. In 1745 Rousseau met Therese Levasseur, his future wife. Rousseau and his wife had five kids. Instead of raising these children themselves Rousseau and his wife sent to them to an orphanage. In 1750 Rousseau entered into an essay contest from the Academy of Dijon. The essay concerned the following question: "Has the restoration of the sciences and arts tended to purify morals?" Rousseau won the contest and had his essay published. Rousseau entered into another essay contest a few years later and ended up lossing because he wrote to large an essay. Rousseau was unfazed by this and had it published by other means. Rousseau was later kicked out of France and Geneva because of his ideas and writings. Rousseau lived in England with David Hume. Rousseau left Hume after eighteen months because they didn't get along. Rousseau was banned from publishing his works. Despite the ban Rousseau continued to write and he read his book //__Confessions__// audiences. He was later told to stop this, but it didn't stop him from speaking his mind through his writings. Rousseau died in the year 1778 from a hemorrhage. ====

essentially good.
====Emile is mainly about the growing and raising of a young boy. Though most of the story is about men, the last section is about the education of girls. The young boy learns the development and processes of natural inquiry. Emile is broken up into five different sections of narrative and essays. Rousseau related each of the sections to an age group and what relates to the reader. ====

· He published the Social Contract in 1762.
====Rousseau is best known for the Social Contract, one of the great classics in political philosophy. Rousseau was concerned with the relationship between the state and the individual. Once freedom is surrendered, then all rights are forfeited which eliminate any demand for something in return. The social contract’s purpose is to resolve the problem of how to bind people to each other without infringing upon their freedom, and it does this by requiring the unconditional surrender of the individual’s freedom to the whole community. The important implications of this definition are that the contract will impose the same conditions for all, creating no interest for one person making the conditions difficult for others; there will be no rights that remain that stand in opposition to the state, because the contract is formed unconditionally; and finally, because each person enters the contract on equal terms, no person loses their natural freedom. **"** [] ====

· His ideas were the primary ideology behind the French Revolution
===="Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they."This motto inspired the French Revolution. Rousseau argues that only by surrendering to the general will, can an individual find his fullest freedom. The general will, essentially directed toward common good, Rousseau believed, is always right. The citizens of a united community exchanges their natural liberty for something better, moral liberty. In this theory political society is seen as involving the total voluntary subjection of every individual to the collective general will; this being both the sole source of legitimate sovereignty and something that cannot but be directed towards common good. ==== ==== · In 1770 he completed his Confessions, an autobiography of persistent self-examination in which he documented the emotional and ethical differences of his life. ==== ====Rousseau starts with his of uniqueness. "I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different." The book was part of his immersion into self-observation ==== ==== · Rousseau published //Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality// in 1754, arguing that the natural, moral state of man had been corrupted by society. ==== ====Rousseau maintained that only the uncorrupted savage is in possession of real virtue. (The most famous adaptation of the idea in literature is [|Edgar Rice Burroughs] 's hero of the jungle, Tarzan.) The cultivation of earth and invention of metallurgy led to the birth of work and property. People were divided into poor and rich, and laws solidified the state of affairs permanently. Despotism is the ultimate end of historical development - we are all equal because we are slaves of one ruler. ====

Impact of Enlightenment
==== Rousseau contributed many thoughts to the Enlightenment. One famous line in which sums up his ideas was when he argued that “that  only by surrendering to the general will, can an individual find his fullest freedom.” In that sentence is tells of how a person must give up stuff for the greater good in order to see his freedom. He wrote many stories in which he expresses finding freedom and working to reach goals.  Rousseau’s thoughts for most of his writings deal with “liberty” also on “social contract.” He was an important writer some of his works were //Discourse on Inequality //<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> which he published in 1754, //Social Contract in// 1762, and //Discourse on Political Economy// in 1755. //Nouvelle Heloise is his famous romantic novel that he wrote in the French Countryside. Rousseau was also known for his passionate rhetoric. He tells of the problems that happened through his life.// ====