Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Courage of Solitude

Born in Geneva on June 28, 1712, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was raised by his father Isaac, a watchmaker who instilled a love of literature and politics. After his father left, Rousseau came under the protection of Françoise-Louise de Warens, a Protestant noblewoman converted to Catholicism. Rousseau distinguished himself among the Enlightenment thinkers—Voltaire, Montesquieu, D'Alembert, Diderot—by his intellectual honesty. His participation in a contest by the Academy of Dijon on whether the progress of sciences and arts had improved morals sparked controversy; Rousseau criticized the Enlightenment's cult of arts and innovation. His subsequent Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men introduced the concept of the state of nature, advocating a return to a pre-social condition of natural goodness. In Emile, he proposed education through play and experience rather than books, famously stating that "astronomy is learned in the woods." The Archbishop of Paris condemned Emile and sought Rousseau's arrest. Forced into exile, Rousseau fled to Geneva, then to England as a guest of David Hume, but his mental health deteriorated. In 1778, he moved to Ermenonville under the protection of the Marquis René-Louis de Girardin. He died on July 2, 1778, asking his companion Thérèse to open the window to hear the birds sing. Rousseau's distrust of science and exaltation of sentiment made him a precursor to Romanticism, while his unwavering intellectual honesty defined his legacy.