Jean-Jacques Rousseau

28 June 1712 – 02 July 1778

• Biography
• Bibliography of his publications
• Bibliography of publications about his life and activity
• Full-text documents
• Bibliography
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s aphorisms

28 June 2017 marked the 305th anniversary of the birth of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778), a prominent figure of the Age of the Enlightenment, French philosopher, writer, composer, pedagogue, and representative of sentimentalism. In his Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (Julie, or the New Heloise) and Émile ou De l’éducation (Emile, or On Education) he criticized the system of education. In his Les Confessions (The Confessions) and Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men) he idealised the primitive society, contrasting the social order of his times with happy life in ‘natural condition’, when all the people were free and had equal rights. In his Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique (On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Rights) Jean-Jacques Rousseau showed the idea of popular sovereignty and transformed it into the integral political and legal concept. The belles-letters book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau awoke humane attitude to poor people and love for nature, furthered harmonious development of an individual and developed a sense of civic duty. He was an author of the first French comic opera Le devin du village (The village soothsayer).