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Background
Background
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His writing influenced political and economic thought and educational thought. He wrote Discourse on the Origin and the Foundation of Inequality Among Mankind in 1754. Along with The Social Contract, it was very influential on political and economic thought. He also had a strong influence on educational thought with his book Emile.
Rousseau’s argument in the Discourse:
Rousseau’s argument in the Discourse:
Rousseau wanted to explore the question: how is it that our innate drive for freedom somehow leads us, time and again, on a ‘spontaneous march to Inequality’?
To do this, he created a thought experiment:
‘One must not take the kind of research which we enter into as the pursuit of truths of history, but solely as hypothetical and conditional reasonings, better fitted to clarify the nature of things than to expose their actual origin…’
In this thought experiment, he speculated the following:
Originally, we were hunter-gatherers. Our tribes were egalitarian because they were small. We were different from the animals only in that we had a sense of freedom and a capacity to learn. Human beings did not have the capacity to reason because they did not have language.
Eventually human beings develop language (and reason) and so become aware of their social status and become competitive. (It is not so much eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that expelled us from the Eden of animal innocence, but rather eating of the Tree of Language.)
This sense of competition lead to the invention of private property:
‘The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.’
Describing how the invention of farming first leads to private property, and property to the need for civil government to protect it, this is how Rousseau puts things:
‘All ran towards their chains, believing that they were securing their liberty; for although they had reason enough to discern the advantages of a civil order, they did not have experience enough to foresee the dangers.’
Discussion
Discussion
Can it really be said that life for us is worse than it is for other non-language-using primates, for example? Are we not better able to care for the weaker and more vulnerable in society because of language? Are the weaker and more vulnerable not better able to care for themselves? Are there no advantages to being language using creatures?
And is it not possible for us to build a fair society precisely because we have langauge?
Tasks:
Tasks:
Explain Rousseau’s argument in the Discourse.
Outline at least one objection to his argument-
Do you agree with what he says? Explain your answer.
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