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Locke describes the state of nature and civil society to be opposites of each other, and the need for civil society comes in part from the perpetual existence of the state of nature. [7] This view of the state of nature is partly deduced from Christian belief (unlike Hobbes, whose philosophy is not dependent upon any prior theology).
Rousseau first exposes in this work his conception of a human state of nature (broadly believed to be a hypothetical thought exercise) and of human perfectibility, an early idea of progress. He then explains the way in which, in his view, people may have established civil society , and this leads him to conclude that private property is the ...
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (UK: / ˈ r uː s oʊ /, US: / r uː ˈ s oʊ /; [1] [2] French: [ʒɑ̃ʒak ʁuso]; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher (), writer, and composer.. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational ...
Rousseau claims that the size of the territory to be governed often decides the nature of the government. Since a government is only as strong as the people, and this strength is absolute, the larger the territory, the more strength the government must be able to exert over the populace (cf. also Turner's frontier thesis for the case of America).
Rousseau's enthusiasm for breastfeeding led him to argue: "[B]ut let mothers deign to nurse their children, morals will reform themselves, nature's sentiments will be awakened in every heart, the state will be repeopled" [13] —a hyperbole that demonstrates Rousseau's commitment to grandiose rhetoric. As Peter Jimack, the noted Rousseau ...
Grace, Eve (2000). "Review of Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life; (Un)Manly Citizens: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's and Germaine de Stael's Subversive Women; Instinct and Intimacy: Political Philosophy and Autobiography in Rousseau; Roussseau's Republican Romance". The American Political Science Review. 94 (4): 922– 924.
Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation. As society developed, the division of labor and private property required the human race to adopt institutions of law.
In his Discourse on Political Economy, Rousseau explicitly credits Diderot's Encyclopédie article "Droit Naturel" as the source of "the luminous concept" of the general will, of which he maintains his own thoughts are simply a development. Montesquieu, Diderot, and Rousseau's innovation was to use the term in a secular rather than theological ...