Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau contributed to many branches of social philosophy. The Social Contract is a classic defence of the democratic form of government. Rousseau trusted the “general will” of a democratic people, as expressed by a vote of the majority, to make all important decisions. This trust in the majority contrasts greatly with the ideas of philosophers who championed minority and individual rights. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is by Maurice Quentin de La Tour and is in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Giraudon/Art Resource, NY

Appears in these articles

Social Inequality; Romanticism (literature); French Literature; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques; Children's Literature; Epistolary Novel

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