Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Part II

Rousseau was 37 years old when a single incident changed his life and he became the philosopher we recognize today. It was 1749. He was in Paris attempting to make a name for himself with a new system of musical notation he had devised. His best friend, Denis Diderot (who would soon publish Volume 1 of the famous Encyclopedia) was in jail in Vincennes, not far from Paris, for a recent publication. Rousseau was visiting his friend. He described what happened in a letter to a French civil servant called Malesherbes more than a decade later, at a time when both "Emile" and "The social contract" were at the printer's (in January 1762; he had published his "First discourse" in 1750, his "Second discourse" on inequality in 1755 and "Julie" in 1761). He further described this event in his "Confessions", written four years later (1766-1770). Below I quote from both works and allow Rousseau to tell the story in his own words:

From: "The confessions"([1766-1770]1782), Part II, Book Eight: "The summer of that year 1749 was excessively hot. Vincennes is some six miles (10 kilometres) from Paris. In no condition to pay for cabs, I walked there at two in the afternoon when I was alone and I went fast so as to arrive early. The trees along the road, always lopped according to the custom of the country, hardly gave any shade; and often I was so prostrated with heat and weariness that I lay down on the ground, unable to go further. In order to slacken my pace, I thought of taking a book with me. One day I took the "Mercure de France" and, glancing through it as I walked, I came upon this question propounded by the Dijon Academy for the next year's prize: Has the progress of the sciences and arts done more to corrupt morals or improve them? The moment I read this I beheld another universe and became another man".

From: Christopher Kelly, Roger D Masters and Peter G Stillman (editors), “The collected Writings of Rousseau”, Volume 5. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1995, Page 575: Letter to Malesherbes, 12 January 1762: In this famous letter (12 January 1762) to Malesherbes, Rousseau continued:

"If anything has ever resembled a sudden inspiration, it is the motion that was caused in me by that reading; suddenly I felt my mind dazzled by a thousand lights; crowds of lively ideas presented themselves at the same time with a strength and a confusion that threw me into an inexpressible perturbation; I feel my head seized by a dizziness similar to drunkenness. A violent palpitation oppresses me, makes me sick to my stomach; not being able to breathe anymore while walking, I let myself fall under one of the trees of the avenue and I pass a half-hour there in such an agitation that when I got up again I noticed the whole front of my coat soaked with my tears without having felt that I shed them. Oh Sir, if I had ever been able to write a quarter of what I saw and felt under that tree, how clearly I would have made all the contradictions of the social system (be) seen, with what strength I would have exposed all the abuses of our institutions, with what simplicity I would have demonstrated that man is naturally good and that it is from these institutions alone that men become wicked. Everything that I was able to retain of these crowds of great truths which illuminated me under that tree in a quarter of an hour has been weakly scattered about in my three principal writings, namely that first discourse, the one on inequality ["Second discourse"], and the treatise on education ["Emile"], which three works are inseparable and together form the same whole. All the rest has been lost...That is how when I was thinking about it least, I became an author in spite of myself.”

Rousseau continued the story in "The confessions":
"(W)hen I reached Vincennes I was in a state of agitation bordering on delirium. Diderot noticed it; I told him the cause and read him Fabricius's soliloquay which I had written in pencil under an oak tree. He encouraged me to give my ideas wings and compete for the prize. I did so and from that moment I was lost. All the rest of my life and of my misfortunes followed inevitably as a result of that moment's madness.

My feelings rose with the most inconceivable rapidity to the level of my ideas. All my little passions were stifled by an enthusiasm for truth, freedom and virtue; and the most astonishing is that this fermentation worked in my heart for more than four or five years [1749-1754] as intensely perhaps as it has ever worked in the heart of anyone on earth" [To be continued]

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) - Part I

Jean-Jacques Rousseau deserves a place with not only the most important philosophers but the most significant sages about whom we have written records. It is not surprising that Socrates was one of his models, since Rousseau can justifiably be seen as the modern Socrates, albeit a flawed one, indeed, a highly-flawed one. And, while his influence on the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is regarded as significant, I believe we have yet to take Rousseau's message seriously. What Rousseau wrote, especially between 1749 and 1762, could then, if it had been taken seriously and could even now, if we were to take it seriously, restore sanity to an insane world.

Personal background:

I was 16 years old when I first read about Rousseau, in the context of my then burgeoning interest in the English Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. I do not actually recall reading about him at this time, but I know I must have done so because I read a fascinating biography of Shelley at this time (early-to-mid-1964) and it is inconceivable that any biography of Shelley could fail to mention Rousseau's influence on Shelley or the latter's fascination with Rousseau (Shelley carried a copy of Rousseau's novel "Julie" with him everywhere at a certain point in his life). When I enrolled in first year Arts at Sydney University the following year (1965), I again became acquainted with Rousseau as a result of my study of French literature, philosophy and politics. Although my favourite philosophers were the British empiricists, in particular, David Hume (a contemporary of Rousseau) and John Stuart Mill (with a much smaller interest in John Locke) and some of the precursors to existentialism like Schopenhauer and Kirkegaard, I was very aware of Rousseau both as a political philosopher (author of "The social contract") and as a novelist, as the author of "Julie: or the New Heloise". This was during the years 1965 to 1967. My interest in Rousseau was rekindled when I returned to Uni in 1971 to complete my philosophy major and begin the study of psychology. Locke, Hume, John Stuart Mill and Rousseau were all mentioned in the context of child psychology or developmental psychology as it was called. But my real interest in Rousseau dates from 1973, when I was already doing third year psychology honours and decided to enroll in an Education honors class as well. Here, Rousseau's "Emile" seemed. to me, to be a sort of a bible (much the same as "Julie" and "The confessions" had been the bibles in French literature eight years earlier). Progressive education, humanistic education, alternatives in education were all the rage at this time and, al;though I did not at first share the other students' enthusiasm for these ideas - which revolted me because they didn't appear to me to be "scientific" - I have come to recognize the profound influence that these six months of educational studies had on me (See "Andrew's story" at www.consciouslivingseminars.com ).

The birth of my second daughter and the way this birth influenced the family dynamic pushed me away from behaviourism and the so-called "scientific" approach to psychology and towards the ideas I had previously rejected (My reading the works of John Bowlby, Erich Fromm, Erik Erikson, Carl Rogers and R.D Laing during 1971-1973 was equally significant). During my Honours year (1974) I read through the progressive education literature and became a convert and, in 1976, when I began my postgraduate studies, nominally in psychology but choosing progressive education as my topic, I renewed my interest in Rousseau and bought an English translation of "The confessions" (I only had it in French), as well as "Emile", Rousseau's famous treatise on education. Rousseau was an important influence on my conception of children, human nature and education and, not surprisingly, on my PhD thesis ("History of an alternative school: An attempt to demodernise", 1983).

Soon after this (1985) I became interested in Aboriginal Affairs, joined the Department of Aboriginal affaitrs (DAA) for four years and eventually went to live on an Aboriginal reserve on the mid-north-coast of NSW for a further four years, followed by an eight-year involvement with a Sydney-based Aboriginal land council. As a result of these experiences and as part of my work for the land council, I began to study the early documents relating to the colonisation of Australia by the British in the 18th century. As part of my research I began to read the diaries of James Cook amongst others and was fascinated by his unusually sympathetic description of Aboriginal people. His biographer, Professor Beaglehole, "accused" him of reading Rousseau and allowing his observations to be prejudiced by this reading. So, during 1994, I began reading Rousseau again, this time focussing on his "Second Discourse", sometimes referred to as "the discourse on inequality" (written in 1754 and published in 1755). Since that time, I have re-read most of what Rousseau wrote, as well as Maurice Cranston's three-volume biography (1982, 1991 and 1997) and the more recent one by Leo Damrosch (2005). I should say that my emerging interest in the institution of modern medicine, especially since 2002, when my grandchildren were born, as well as my renewed interest in the history and philosophy of science (which dates back to my fascination with physics in the early 1960s) have strengthened my attraction to Rousseau and his message to the world.

With this personal introduction, I may perhaps begin to introduce the essence of Rousseau's teachings, in the context of his times, something I will begin in my next post [To be continued].