I can sum up his position in a few French words, "amour de soi, pas, amour propre". Which means "self-love, not self-esteem".

Beautiful.

>>24511489 (OP)
gay

>>24511489 (OP)
I prefer this Jean-Jacques

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-boDeijWuOY

the french are the most fucking gay people in existence

>>24511539
So, tell us who is your favorite novelist

>>24511489 (OP)
What went wrong?

his confessions dragged on and on. do not recommend

>>24511539
Thank you

goated frfr

“Each man’s private property is henceforth protected by the whole community, and, moreover, subject to its authority: the right which the individual has to his own estate is always subordinate to the right which the community has over all. Otherwise, the enjoyment of this right would be feeble and illusory.”

ABSOLUTE FUCKIN BANGER

>>24511552
Got too close to England

>>24511489 (OP)
naw more like this, fag

Our next meeting at the Mitre was on Saturday the 15th of February, when I presented to him my old and most intimate friend, the Reverend Mr. Temple, then of Cambridge. I having mentioned that I had passed some time with Rousseau in his wild retreat, and having quoted some remark made by Mr. Wilkes, with whom I had spent many pleasant hours in Italy, Johnson said (sarcastically,) 'It seems, Sir, you have kept very good company abroad, Rousseau and Wilkes!' Thinking it enough to defend one at a time, I said nothing as to my gay friend, but answered with a smile, 'My dear Sir, you don't call Rousseau bad company. Do you really think HIM a bad man?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a shame that he is protected in this country.' BOSWELL. 'I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations.' BOSWELL. 'Sir, do you think him as bad a man as Voltaire?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.'

>>24512542
lmfao

>>24511489 (OP)
Every time I feel sad I remember that this man is roasting in Hell for all eternity and it helps me feel a little bit better. Fuck you, absolute piece of shit, you ruined humanity forever.

>>24512663
He's an angel

>>24511489 (OP)
>pas
wtf is that
fucking stupid language

>>24511489 (OP)
What's his most metaphysical work?

>>24512663
who and what did he do?

>>24512733
He impregnated a mentally retarded woman about a half a dozen times.

>>24512774
be serious for once.

>>24512781
Read his Confessions.

>>24512774
Many men do.

>>24512774
was that the one were he kept making her abandon the kids to an orphanage or something and saw nothing wrong with this

>>24513645
This man can do no wrong

>>24512410
This idea only works when you don’t enfranchise women, cripples, and dependents. It doesn’t work as a moral theory when you enfranchise people who don’t actually contribute to national defence.

>>24513830
>what were doing is wrong and we'll just keep doing it
>so that makes YOU wrong, not us

>>24513830
like rich people who slurp surplus

>>24511489 (OP)
This is not what Rousseau said. It is through society that amour propre comes about, but amour propre is a necessary feature of development, however it needs to be controlled in order to avoid revolution. In his argument he is working towards his big point in the second part of the second discourse (of which the discourse on language certainly was a part before its publication) where he claims the necessity, for example, of metallurgy for agriculture to develop. The city needs the farmer as much as the farmer needs the city. It is only that commercial society, according to Rousseau, must have an egalitarian foundation for revolution (caused by luxury) to be avoided.

>>24513972
When Rousseau speaks of necessity he is not speaking about what is optimal or what is better but rather things that are implied by other things

He is certainly in favor of amour de soi, but understands that is no longer accessible.

>>24513972
>>24513999
There is definitely an aspect in which Rousseau heavily favors amour de soi over amour-propre. Which one is "true" and which one is built on a perilous foundation?

>>24513999
>He is certainly in favor of amour de soi, but understands that is no longer accessible
>>24514016
>There is definitely an aspect in which Rousseau heavily favors amour de soi
Please enlighten me, where does he say this? Because if you would refer to the second discourse for that, then I think you are wrong, as the point is to write - in the natural jurisprudence tradition - not an actual but a conceptual history of mankind in order to explain and solve the problems that were present in his time. In other words, Rousseau is explicitly not a critic of commercial society but a proponent, and tries to find a way out of the problems of overtaxation and population decrease from the countryside (which was a contemporary problem; think the colbertism of louis xiv showed). With 'critic', I mean the diagnosis of moral and psychological problems of conventional society. His theory is completely on the other side, however.

>>24514040
Allow me to append, amour propre and amour de soi meme are not ideas or reasons, they are 'loves'. See the discourse on language, and especially chapter 10 on the formation of northern languages where he says something like: before one can think of living happily, one first had to think about living in the sense of surviving. In the scarce north, therefore, the first word, instead of "love me", was "help me". See the overlap here with the both 'loves'.

>>24514059
>>24514040
Book 1 of the social contract

So amour de soi is the state that animals possess and humans once had, we now possess that but also amour propre. This is why we prosper but also a curse. He IS. A proponent of amour propre yes, but he acknowledges amour de soi as the ideal state. We are just not so lucky and he is pragmatic.

>>24514095
I think you are confusing "ideal" as what is "the best" with "ideal" as what is opposite to "real". There is not a real but only an ideal state of nature. The ideal state is 'ideal' in that it is a fictional vehicle that serves as part of an argument. The whole book of the social contract, while hardly mentioning amour propre, surely is about controlling amour propre.

Describing a conceptual instead of actual history of state (or the historical movement from a state of nature to civil society) is the bread and butter of the natural jurisprudence (or natural law) tradition. Literally from Grotius on, who historicized Aquinas, up to and including the eighteenth century philosophers, conceptual histories were widely used. This tradition (with Pufendorf) is also original in reapplying the invention of Hobbes that argues for a state from a state of nature.

Moreover, Rousseau, with explicating amour propre, merely rephrased Hobbesian pride as a cause for an unstable society. I do not see Rousseau favoring his fictional state of nature that's, like Hobbes, characterized by need (also not in book 1 of the social contract) as it inherently -through mutual need- causes society to spawn. Surely with all its bad consequences, but necessarily nonetheless.

Finally, then, if you mean 'favoring' amour de soi as that which is temporally first, then I agree. But 'favoring' as political advice, as an "end" to chase, then I have a feeling we're reading different Rousseaus.

>>24514160
He quite literally says it would be better if it were the case, but it isnt. He absolutely believes it's a better situation.

>>24514040
Then explain his 1st Discourse where he absolutely skewers “civilized society” and the notion of progress, and the intros to the 2nd Discourse and the Social Contract, where he claims that “nature never lies” in the former (think carefully about why amour de soi is so valuable) and that he merely seeks to “make the chains legitimate” in the latter. Or, simply look at the tone of the developments in the 2nd Discourse. It seems that the only positively received development from solitary primitive man is the family (which of course Rousseau the sappy romantic would praise pure love). Here’s an even better question: when is amour-propre ever viewed favorably? Your portrayal of Rousseau as a levelheaded devil’s advocate sounds completely discordant from what Rousseau has written. If he is “with” bourgeois society, it is only because he has no other choice. But that’s not where his heart lies.

bump

>>24514160
Which Rousseau are *you* reading? This dispassionate, unromantic Rousseau is completely foreign to me and nearly everybody else.

>>24511489 (OP)
This faggot fucked everything up for 300 years

>>24516643
Same with the German idealists, fuck them too.

a good thread on Rousseau almost started, sigh

(1/2)

>>24515629
>>24517095
Sorry for the late reply, wonderful to see there’s interest

>>24514180
>He absolutely believes it's a better situation
Only to an extent of balance, but in shifting to ‘situation’ you speak of a political situation, not of the psychological disposition of natural man’s type of self-regard. I may have been ambiguous, in the last sentence of my last reply, (>>24514160) but as I was initially responding to OP’s focus on amour de soi meme with its negation of amour propre, I consider it a blatant oversimplification to such an extent that it is false. Both ‘loves’ matter, equally. This is, I believe, Rousseau’s political judgment.

If I remember correctly, it was in Emile where he said something about the goodness of the natural moral virtue of self-respect, and I'm not trying to say there's no merit to the good things in the state of nature such as perfect liberty and equality. Though, this characterization, I think, is limited. Think of what Rousseau echoing Pufendorf said about the natural state: indigent (needy) but free - as opposed to Hobbes, where we were indigent and unfree. But we should not forget “needy” here. For Rousseau, what is a real natural ‘need’: food. And food is important. What is a real artificial ‘want’: luxury. And luxury is not that important, only people tend to forget this through the overindulgence in amour propre, which is THE cause for revolution.

>>24514484
Not to denounce the first discourse indirectly, but find me an 18th-century commentator who did not bash the dreary effects of luxury. I think the whole early modern era is tainted with this idea (for good reason, of course) and Rousseau was no exception. What does he say in the beginning of the first discourse: it was revolution (Rome’s sacking) that put Europe back into barbarism, and what caused this revolution? Luxury (also for Greece). They forgot what’s needed: food; agriculture.

>when is amour-propre ever viewed favorably? Your portrayal of Rousseau as a levelheaded devil’s advocate sounds completely discordant from what Rousseau has written.
Devil’s advocate? What is this diabolical ascriptions am I making? See his Considerations on the Government of Poland (1772), or see his Constitutional Project for Corsica (1765). Compare it with what he says halfway in the second part of the second discourse. I quote for you, first, from the Project for Corsica, then, the Second Discourse:
1. “I am so fully convinced that any system of commerce is destructive to agriculture that I do not even make an exception for trade in agricultural products. If agriculture were to maintain itself under this system, the profits would have to be shared equally between the merchant and the tiller of the soil.”
2. “The invention of the other arts must therefore have been necessary to compel mankind to apply themselves to agriculture”

(2/2)

Such as the first part of the second discourse, he shows man not as God-given reasonable, but as what would have been the case if God would not have pulled us out of the state of nature. We’d have perfect equality and liberty as the art would die with its inventor, we all are chasing the next dinner, and we’d be too stupid to fix this. And in the beginning of the second part: with population increase, men’s cares increased. And here’s the origin of the great divide: the rise of metallurgy; the unproductive class; the city, though essential as it is for the rise of agriculture, it has mysterious origins (see the origin of language).

Amour propre maps not onto agriculture, but onto metallurgy; the city. And since metallurgic invention is necessary to sustain demography (something Rousseau considered essential for state survival) agriculture cannot do without the city that extorts it. If I remember correctly, somewhere in his Considerations on Poland he says we need an honor system of medals or something to control amour propre - as a solution to revolution.

>>24516638
>This dispassionate, unromantic Rousseau is completely foreign to me and nearly everybody else
I’m not saying that what I think is popular opinion, but his point on revolution is there (afaik) everytime he wrote. The point is that a balanced growth is best, it’s not a rosy-eyed melancholy for what cannot be. I believe Richard Whatmore’s claim that the whole (historical) enlightenment project was about stopping wars of religion, and I believe Rousseau was part of this movement.

>>24517565
>2. “The invention of the other arts must therefore have been necessary to compel mankind to apply themselves to agriculture”
I don't understand what you are trying to prove. Agriculture was so bad that it required other tools to make it even bearable? Tbh that fits in well with most anthropologists/paleontologists description of how much of a downgrade agriculture was in terms of quality of life for Paleolithic man.

>>24516643
And just when the Ancien regime was going so well, right?

>>24517570
My apologies, I should have written this all in one post.

>Not to denounce the first discourse indirectly, but find me an 18th-century commentator who did not bash the dreary effects of luxury
Rousseau did more than just call the 18th century soft. He thrashed everything that the salon valued and held dear and threatened the integrity of progress. He's a Counter-Enlightenment figure in my eyes.

Rousseau never came off to me as actually liking any of the development he portrayed in the 2nd Discourse. Granted, I'm not saying that I've read everything that he's written, just the greatest hits (1st, 2nd, Social Contract, Emile), but even the source that you're quoting and trying to compare with what I do know does not seem to square well with the thesis that you're advancing.

Rousseau at best seems to be trying to make the best out of a shitty situation, one that he openly describes as non-ideal. And I keep returning to amour de soi versus amour-propre (and social deception) because they seem like a mechanistic cause behind why he views the Enlightenment the way he does.

>>24517852
>Agriculture was so bad that it required other tools to make it even bearable?
The second discourse, the discourse on inequality. What's the argument there? That's what I'm alluding to. Amour propre, or pride, seeks luxury. And luxury is an engine of society which destroys society, hence the need for the Social Contract (e.g. see book 1 ch 8 - contra ‘noble savage’-lingo). The quote I’ve taken there, comes after the following portion of Rousseau’s conjectural history of society: that agriculture emerging /after/ metallurgy is a result of population growth.

The 2nd part of the 2nd discourse argument, then. Why does luxury destroy society? If metallurgy comes from population growth, and agriculture comes from metallurgy, and luxury makes people lazy and effeminate and whatever, then population decreases because of luxury, the countryside people because of inherent /inequality/ in pride and money - through the structural dependence relationship of agriculture to the city - move from the country to the city because of the lack of glamour that the low-paying job entails. Two parts of population decline: effeminate moral cityboys; depleting physical men from the countryside to become effeminate moral cityboys. And then society becomes vulnerable for military attack. Why? The military must be fed, and in a situation of military threat, then taxes rise to pay for the bills, and people are needed to fill the army. But the countryside is depleted because food has a set price, its a very socially unprestigious job, and its the countrymen that join the army. Now you have a military you can’t feed, who is from the countryside, does not want to be in the city, but has no other choice, as the city does not produce offspring - spiralling social stability, and when one ambitious populist stands up to make it a military dictatorship, you have a literal revolution, or you have military defeat by aggressors. This is Rousseau’s problem with revolution. Parts of this argument feature throughout his work.

This fits historically contextually, as a continuation of both Fenelon’s Telemaque and Montesquieu’s Esprit des lois. And within the wider 18th century discussion of the problem of luxury.

>>24517893
>He thrashed everything that the salon valued and held dear and threatened the integrity of progress.
I presume you’re speaking here of the physiocrats (or the économistes) which Rousseau bashed because of their /despotisme légale/ - that no human in their direct republic could be placed in the position of enforcer without becoming corrupt? I mean, they looked alike, but where Rousseau had Geneva in mind, the physiocrats thought of France. Haha, he preferred Hobbesian despotism over the physiocrats, that’s a funny letter from Rousseau to Mirabeau: “Your system is very good for the people of Utopia; it is worthless for the children of Adam.”
Funny enough in this letter (of july 26, 1767), he also speaks of “squaring the circle”.

>He's a Counter-Enlightenment figure in my eyes.
If you could elaborate I’m curious to understand why you see him as you do. But as I explain here (>>24518582), I think he’s really embedded in his time, not very original (though he is with his revolution argument and he’s a very consistent writer), and, maybe most controversially, completely submerged in the political economy of his time. Moreover, I don’t think he’s contra-enlightenment really as (1) he fits into the natural jurisprudence tradition by his social contract theory; (2) he’s not very familiar with his contemporaries from Scotland; and (3) it’d be fair to say that balanced growth (which I probably haven’t explained properly, but) is the solution to the problem posed in the 2nd discourse that he explicates literally in his later works on Corsica and Poland.

>>24517565
you're a giant fag dude

>>24518683
Why else would I by here

>>24518582
>Amour propre, or pride, seeks luxury
That's wrong. It doesn't seek luxury, it seeks external approval.

I'll write more later. I'll have more energy in the morning.

>that part in the confessions when some dude starts jerking off in front of him

>>24518582
>>24518587
I looked over this post with a fresh cup of coffee. I think you're reading Rousseau from an economic or a materialist angle purely, especially with the fixation on luxury. I actually really like this breakdown. I don't think I ever read Rousseau with this angle, and I'm learning a lot from reading it. But I have my own bone to pick.

Rousseau is no fan of luxury, true. But is that the operating principle of amour-propre, and is that what is the most direct cause of corruption in in a society? No. Amour de soi is the self-love, and it is tied to the sheer accomplishment of survival by primitive man's own means. There is a sense that amour de soi is a stable "metric" of truth, because even if one is crafty, one can never be fully deceived about whether they have enough food to eat (because otherwise they would be dead). Amour-propre is affirmation from external sources because we need others to survive, having left the solitary state of nature. And this, unfortunately, is where man's capacity for deception is turned away from nature and toward each other. I argue that this is the primary engine that Rousseau thinks is the cause of degeneration in societies (I am thinking of the First Discourse), e.g. the decline of the refinement of the arts because nobody cares about good taste but rather circlejerking each other. Even long before metallurgy and agriculture, you have the problem of property, which Rousseau points out is the greatest deception in history. The problem is that people want external affirmation because they cannot get any of their own, but they are willing to deceive others about what they value in order to get what they value the most (which itself is probably a product of deception as well!).

Amour de soi into amour propre is a breakdown of the power process , pic related

>>24520055
For me Rousseau mentions the superior state of amour de soi, and because we are more than that there really isn't much to be said. Now there is A LOT to be said about life in enlightenment era Europe. So you hear more about amour propre.

This says nothing about his opinion. The ability to speak at length about something does not mean it's the thing you're shilling to the world.

I can say I prefer cotton candy to broccoli, but that isn't useful if I only have broccoli to eat. You might only hear me talk about broccoli. That's doesn't make it a preference.

>>24520104
Rousseau gives his opinion at length. And it's not even a cut-and-dry opinion like "only primitive man good". The brief jump to coupling prior to the tribe in the 2nd Discourse is seen by Rousseau as a positive development. Everything else, he is not quite so sure. It is frustrating that you are doing everything you can to desanitize perhaps the most sentimental philosopher prior to Nietzsche. If I had a copy of Rousseau's Two Discourses on me, I could point to every few pages where he's making his feelings clear as day. I just don't get it.

>>24520146
"at length"

It's many thousands of words less than his tirades on modernity

"makes his feelings clear as day"
Anon this is Rousseau, a fucking dandelion of a human. He could write a million words about his love of cocks and it would not necessarily imply anything above gossip.

It must be remembered that people with easy lives just say words for the sake of it, meaning is a harder to attain thing.

>>24520181
>It's many thousands of words less than his tirades on modernity
They're one and the same. Amour-propre, deception, and the lack of foundation for progress itself. I really don't get your intent on separating Rousseau's feelings about amour de soi and its connection to undermining the credibility of the typical indicators of progress, since it's *clearly* there. In fact you've riled me up that I'm just gonna start quoting from the First and Second Discourses at length:

>And people began to feel the main advantage of busying themselves with the Muses, which is to make men more sociable by inspiring in them the desire to please each other with works worthy of their mutual approbation

>Before art fashioned our manners and taught our passions to speak an affected language, our habits were rustic but natural, and differences in behaviour announced at first glance differences in character. Human nature was not fundamentally better, but men found their security in the ease with which they could see through each other, and this advantage, whose value we no longer feel, spared them many vices.

>One does not dare to appear as what one is. And in this perpetual constraint, men who make up this herd we call society, placed in the same circumstances, will all do the same things, unless more powerful motives prevent them. Thus, one will never know well the person one is dealing with.

>Every artist wishes to be applauded. The praises of his contemporaries are the most precious part of his reward.

>In this way, the dissolution of morals, a necessary consequence of luxury, brings with it, in its turn, the corruption of taste. If by chance among men of extraordinary talents one finds one who has a firm soul and refuses to lend himself to the spirit of his age and demean himself with puerile works, too bad for him! He will die in poverty and oblivion.

>If cultivating the sciences is detrimental to warrior qualities, it is even more so to moral qualities. From our very first years our inane education decorates our minds and corrupts our judgment. I see all over the place immense establishments where young people are raised at great expense to learn everything except their obligations. Your children will know nothing of their own language, but they will speak in others which are nowhere in use. They will know how to compose verses which they will hardly be capable of understanding. Without knowing how to distinguish truth and error, they will possess the art of making both truth and error unrecognizable to others through specious arguments. But they will not know what the words magnanimity, temperance, humanity, and courage mean.

(1/2)

>>24520250
>
>The wise man does not run after fortune, but he is not insensitive to glory. And when he sees it so badly distributed, his virtue, which a little praise would have energized and made advantageous to society, collapses, grows sluggish, and dies away in misery and oblivion. That's what, in the long run, must be the result of a preference for agreeable talents rather than useful ones, and that's what experience has only too often confirmed since the re-establishment of the sciences and the arts.

>The mind has its needs, just as the body does. The latter are the foundations of society; from the former emerge the pleasures of society.

--

>O man, no matter what country you come from, no matter what your opinions, listen. Here is your history the way I have believed it to read, not in the books written by men like you, who are liars, but in nature, which never lies. Everything from nature will be true.

>There we are with all our faculties developed, memory and imagination at work, self-love [amour propre] acting out of selfish interests, reason activated, and the mind almost having attained the limit of the perfection of which it is capable. There we have all the natural qualities set into action, the rank and lot of each man established, not only on the basis of the quality of goods and the power of helping or harming, but on the basis of the mind, beauty, strength or skill, and merit or talents. Since these qualities were the only ones which could attract respect, it was soon necessary to have them or to pretend to have them and, for one's own advantage, to show oneself as different from what one, in fact, was. Being and appearing became two entirely different things, and from this distinction emerged impressive ostentation, deceitful cunning, and all the vices which come in their wake.

...

Like, I had to avoid copying and pasting entire sections one after another because the whole thing just became one giant block of support. I really don't get how you can extinguish the passion from Rousseau's work, social deception, nor the central mechanistic importance of amour-propre. That's where it all goes downhill.

(2/2)

>>24520261
>>24520250
>passion

prose is literally a hobby for delusional gay people do you even know what twitter is

The decadence of the era mutes all that he says, it's just flower flailing

>>24520261
>>24520250
I didnt read this, I don't care

>Rousseau, like a dramatic gay says that it would be better if we were animals
>Rousseau, like a dramatic gay also speaks on the ins and outs of modern society

All we can say for sure is that he is a dramatic gay, there is not and will never be anything more than that.

>>24520305
>The decadence of the era mutes all that he says, it's just flower flailing
What do you think he is criticizing, stupid?
>>24520309
>Rousseau, like a dramatic gay says that it would be better if we were animals
Not what he says but okay.

>>24520309
Go back to the homosexual board.

>>24520324
>>24520312
He describes it as an ideal state and that's that

Stay mad

>criticizing
No he is being a gay drama queen have you never heard a gay person speak about a topic? They can talk shit about things they are 100% beholden to.

>>24520326
He describes some of the developments out of the state of nature as better, not worse. But you're illiterate, so you wouldn't get it.

>>24520326
The only one who is mad is you. Return to your homosexual board. Homosexuals are capable of philosophy and literature but not all homosexuals can.

>>24520332
>mad
No this is very funny I haven't gotten mad at a 4chan thread in my 20 year history on this website
>>24520329
This is merely his own admission of his bitchmade nature, he is unable to have another opinion.

To say another way, an ideal perfect form does not necessarily have as many benefits as an imperfect form. You can acknowledge both positively.

Ideal has NOTHING to do with better outcomes.

Perfect circle vs lumpy sphere

>>24520343
>mindless metaphysical moron

Yes homosexual you're beloved being and false identity have importance in your little homosexual environment. Seek out F Gardner for initiation, he will inform you of the proper use for the mouth in metaphysics.

>>24520347
You can describe something as qualitatively superior and subjective humans can come to prefer something totally different

That's how it works bud

>>24520349
You keep posting. I'm already detecting a significant shift.

>>24520351
In what anon?

lol

>>24520343
You're just talking bullshit at this point. The sad thing is that you'd probably agree with most of the things he had to say, but you're too lazy to actually read him for what he says. You're regurgitating summaries you read from people who have never read him, who are themselves regurgitating the prejudices of Voltaire, who himself is the cosmopolitan Reddit homosexual incarnate of the 18th century Enlightenment.

Please, correct yourself before you twist yourself into an even more obnoxious embarrassment.

>>24520358
Actually I'm just bothering you for fun, Rousseau is awesome bud

God you are such a loser lmao

>>24520354
You don't know anything and have no business in a Rousseau thread. You understand your inherent worthlessness regardless of your homosexual identity. A Gardner re-education may not be necessary. There are already mindless metaphysical and off-topic threads on here for you. Your opinions are worthless otherwise. If you feel otherwise then return to your homosexual group.

>>24520367
You couldn't be gayer, flailing about with your bitch wrists

>>24520360
kill yourself retard

>>24520374
This guy is so mad

>>24520369
You've demonstrated my point.

>>24520378
You ruined a good thread.

>>24520380
>>24520379
I made the thread.

The entire thing was a joke about amour de soi. You were my target. I had a great time.

Keep defending your gay bitch! haha

>>24520391
Homosexuals are adept at the use of coping mechanisms. This is likely due to the nature of how they structure their identity. Rousseau has never been refuted in the entirety. I'm not sure why your coping mechanisms were activated and don't possess the suitable homosexual slang for this scenario. Good for you?

>>24520391
You made the thread. The thread got good. Then you returned just to ruin it again. Besides, you have no idea what amour de soi is. The entire object of your wit is nonexistent. You live in a fantasy world, and I genuinely pity what you find entertaining. You would be better off dead. A mercy killing would be the most humane treatment for you.

>>24520398
>>24520395
He's still going hahahahaha

>>24520402
This is what metaphysics does to you.

>>24520402
I like telling retards that they're retarded. You get pleasure from leaving shit everywhere. I get pleasure from telling people like you that they should kill themselves. It's a mutual symbiosis.

(1/2)

>>24519088
>It doesn't seek luxury, it seeks external approval.
Sure, I was merely compressing. If expressed step by step, then, I think: the first words of humans in the sunny abundant south, the “love me!”-expression, namely the expression that comes after “help me!” - the first words of the humans in the scarce north; this is acted upon, and as we read in the first discourse already, “the conveniencies of life increase” and “as the arts are brought to perfection and luxury spreads” then the demise of luxury becomes apparent, as you can read in my summary of the argument of the 2nd discourse.

As you(?) (>>24520250) quote,
>Every artist wishes to be applauded. The praises of his contemporaries are the most precious part of his reward.
Recognition-seeking is part and parcel of the human that engages in social activity. Where self-interest in Hobbes was a flat one, Rousseau (like his contemporaries, such as Hume (whom he hasn’t read - of which we know why, of course)) divided it up into natural and artificial properties: those innate (amour de soi-meme + ‘pitie’ of course, but I won’t get into that atm), and the other the consequence of society.

However, your emphasis on Rousseau’s position in the 1st discourse is, in my view, mistaken. Not much later than its publication, Rousseau revised his views on the certainty of the detrimental qualities of arts and sciences. Proof of this can be found in the replies to his critics after publication of the first discourse, and later, his Observations in reply to the King of Poland, where he explicates he was really attacking the abuse of the sciences. Additionally, his attitude towards the arts is surely modified after the publication of his two operas, one a success and one a failure. Moreover, his confessions also state that his 1st discourse was maybe good rhetoric, but bad logic, and I believe this is the case. And, as I mentioned earlier, how can the social contract be explained otherwise, than what good state-building, in his view, entails?

>>24520055
>especially with the fixation on luxury
As response, and as conclusion of the previous paragraph, in my view, it is /he himself/, who modified his own stance, left the harsh rhetoric of the first discourse against the arts and sciences, and doubled down against luxury - historically situated in opposition to Bernard Mandeville (with the fable of the bees) & Jean-Francois Melon’s Political Essay on Commerce.
>Amour-propre is affirmation from external sources because we need others to survive
I hope you mean something else, here, than what you’ve written. Amour-propre is not a need, it is a want: pride, status.
>the decline of the refinement of the arts because nobody cares about good taste but rather circlejerking each other
Yes, you see, right? An important part of luxury, or what Smith liked to call “baubles and trinkets”, is both cause, consequence, and demise of society, that’s what I’ve been mentioning earlier.
>Even long before metallurgy and agriculture, you have the problem of property, which Rousseau points out is the greatest deception in history
And now we reached full circle. What I left out in the argument of the 2nd discourse: economy leapfrogs between needs and wants. Wants create needs, and need fulfillment create wants. Society according to Rousseau is, I believe, the leapfrogging of both (characterized by agriculture and industry), and good statesmanship recognizes this, meaning (1) the need for agrarian laws (in line with Montesquieu) and (2) the dispersion of the administrative city from the center of exchange (aka the market).

Moreover, Rousseau recognizes property as a necessary feature of society: see his Corsica text (as literally the whole natural jurisprudence tradition attests to, including Hobbes, Locke, and everyone around them confirms). If I remember correctly it was Grotius already who said that stuff owned in general is taken worse care off than stuff owned in private. Now, I’m not saying property is not a problem in itself, I mean the whole history of political philosophy dealing with legitimacy of state, has been dealing with the problem of property as well - since, when God has given the earth to mankind in common, what gives anyone the right to claim a piece as his own? This is one of the - if not the - core problem of territory (in relation to the state) which has always been taken als /de facto/ and not /de jure/.

>>24511489 (OP)

>>24520422
>>24520424
First, I acknowledge that Rousseau softens his rhetoric after the First Discourse. I think we're both familiar with the background behind the story, e.g. Rousseau found a provincial essay competition, was seized by a fit of inspiration and submitted it in a day, and it was supposedly seen as a masterful satire given the salon-centric prejudices of the day. Rousseau's critiques of Enlightenment-era values were NOT popular, and when it became clear that he was not satirical but rather serious, he became the target of extreme derision from Enlightenment-era intelligentsia. Rousseau was therefore forced to tone down his work if he wanted to continue to have a respectable career. Though, like I said before, it's not difficult to find where his true sentiments and evaluations lie with regards to the value of Enlightenment culture, the development of humanity, the nature of virtue, etc., because he can hardly constrain himself from indulging on his opinions as he writes.

Second, to what degree is Rousseau *changing* what he believes after he wrote the First Discourse? Is it not better to say that he is *maturing* his beliefs, like one ages a barrel of wine? Heidegger wrote that every thinker thinks only one thought. When we start to see Rousseau's more sober thoughts, as we see the mechanisms that Rousseau highlights in his analyses, it is so easy to lift and match them with the social critiques that he is performing in the First Discourse. The nucleus of Rousseau's thought clearly begins with the First Discourse, and I don't see how one can escape this inevitability. The best one can ascribe to Rousseau is that he tones down the assault, though one cannot tell if this is due to retaining a glimmer of hope that the Enlightenment can be tamed, succumbing to general pessimism that "the chains must be made legitimate", or rather due to the fact that Rousseau could not sustain a career of letters and maintain any semblance of an audience due to the very same pressures that he outlines in the First Discourse! In a way, Rousseau is telling on himself, and it doesn't take a keen eye to recognize this.

>I hope you mean something else, here, than what you’ve written. Amour-propre is not a need, it is a want: pride, status.
It is both. You need other people (because you are no longer in the solitary state and you're too soft to go back alone). There's a point where Rousseau highlights that the first few steps into primitive societies were "probably" for the better, even if they made man weaker (e.g. the family, the tribe, etc.). But, for some reason, you always want more than you need as well (and desu, I am not sure if Rousseau really examines this as much as he should). It is worth contrasting with amour de soi, because amour de soi never takes more than it needs.

I think the next level of our argument will need to examine the exact relationship between luxury, needs, wants, amour de soi, amour-propre, etc.

>>24520461
>Enlightenment culture
For some reason I get the feeling that you are a proponent of the concept of Enlightenment as arbitrary rationality (as A&H proposed), or some related critical flavor. Therefore, I must add that I most certainly disagree with these moralistic reinterpretations of an actual historical era (as I mentioned earlier when referencing Whatmore). In my reading, Rousseau would also disagree with this as well, because he explicates that he is a moral naturalist (a ‘realist’) and not, e.g., a deontologist (or a ‘moralist’). To be sure, as I see it, for Rousseau, it is /morality/ that emerges in humans /because/ of society, i.e. morality’s in humans is a result of society. Therefore, he is a naturalist. Contrastingly, when morality is external or /prior/ to society, then he’d have been a moralist or a deontologist (generally speaking, of course; I don’t want to get too specific here). The latter is what I think you subscribe to Rousseau with his cultural critique, since the ‘critique’-part assumes the latter as well. If this is the case and if not through his explicit naturalism, then where, I ask, do we find an explication of his moral thought?

You say
>it is so easy to lift and match [his sober thoughts] with the social critiques that he is performing in the First Discourse
But this is what I have evidently, specifically demonstrated as well. Where can I find this crypto-moralism that Rousseau according to you maintains? If you have followed my argument, then you can see what I perceive to be his grand project, for which I have provided extensive references. If I’m allowed to exaggerate a bit, then I’d say that suave rhetoric (or social criticism, ‘moralism’) is political theology not political philosophy, this is (if you allow me the exaggeration) also the point of Rousseau’s own regretful attitude towards the 1st discourse in the Confessions. Moreover, my demonstration shows that parts of his argument of revolution are mentioned in practically each of his writings.

>>24520664
To answer briefly, what you are noticing is how the early modern political philosophers gradually sought to reject God, Christianity, and the Catholic Church as a legitimate frame of reference for justice. And thus, they looked to other possible frames to ground their thinking. Some choose man. Others choose nature. Some go even further, or they mix and match. A few try to tentatively mend fences, the way the wayward child reconnects with their estranged parents as an independent adult. But the bridges cannot be unburnt, and the foundation is never the same.

Rousseau seems to clearly fall into the category of nature being the original frame of reference. And he is also a progressive, albeit one who believes that progress walks a fine line between salvation and perdition. The task of society is to do *better* than nature, but this is not an inevitability according to Rousseau. Man can do far worse in society than he can do in nature, and for all the discomforts and perils of nature, at least nature "never lies". Whatever reconciliation Rousseau tries to do, I get the sense that it is nearly always with the tone of "making the best of a bad situation".

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>>24520664
>>24520701
>But this is what I have evidently, specifically demonstrated as well. Where can I find this crypto-moralism that Rousseau according to you maintains?
lol, you are too much sometimes. Crypto-moralism? I think it's staring at the reader in the face, and it is why that Rousseau typically received the polarizing reaction that he did. But I'll humor you. It's all over the Second Discourse. Rousseau even begins the introduction of the Second Discourse by noting that "nature never lies" and throwing down the gauntlet:
>O man, of whatever country you are, and whatever your opinions may be, behold your history, such as I have thought to read it, not in books written by your fellow-creatures, who are liars, but in nature, which never lies. All that comes from her will be true; nor will you meet with anything false, unless I have involuntarily put in something of my own. The times of which I am going to speak are very remote: how much are you changed from what you once were! It is, so to speak, the life of your species which I am going to write, after the qualities which you have received, which your education and habits may have depraved, but cannot have entirely destroyed. There is, I feel, an age at which the individual man would wish to stop: you are about to inquire about the age at which you would have liked your whole species to stand still. Discontented with your present state, for reasons which threaten your unfortunate descendants with still greater discontent, you will perhaps wish it were in your power to go back; and this feeling should be a panegyric on your first ancestors, a criticism of your contemporaries, and a terror to the unfortunates who will come after you
Can't you feel the raw passion bleeding forth from the text? I remember reading Rousseau *actually* for the first time in college and being shocked by the experience. It was a complete turnaround from Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, etc. Previously, I had a negative prejudice to Rousseau that was founded wholly on my ignorance of his actual thought. He turned out to be a completely different kind of person, and one who I deeply resonated with, even if I had to carefully re-arrange his often impressionistic thinking into something more coherent.

Anyway, later in the 2nd Discourse, he gives a shining example of where he thinks a good example could be found of "where you would like the whole species to have stood still", and it is in the early stages of leaving nature (so, later than the "noble savage" that many of his contemporaries unfairly chastised him for idealizing):
>Thus, though men had become less patient, and their natural compassion had already suffered some diminution, this period of expansion of the human faculties, keeping a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our egoism, must have been the happiest and most stable of epochs.
There is more to be said. But I'll stop here.

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(1/2)

A couple things I noticed I overlooked when rereading the thread:
>>24517893
>Rousseau at best seems to be trying to make the best out of a shitty situation, one that he openly describes as non-ideal
This is the point of political theory. It is inherently non-ideal, because you cannot force people to align with your thoughts, or as one famous political philosopher said, overlapping consensus cannot be coerced. This is what Rousseau took head-on by modifying Montesquieu (‘possibility of stability when starting from inequality’) and Fenelon (‘destroy the city to start equally’) to get to reform the state so that we can live in equality.

>>24520055
>The problem is that people want external affirmation because they cannot get any of their own, but they are willing to deceive others about what they value in order to get what they value the most (which itself is probably a product of deception as well!).
Sure it is self-deception, but recognition is what, according to Rousseau, spawns in people when moving from the SoN to society. It is not necessarily intentionally deceptive of others, it is self-deceptive, because status -being inherently comparative- is a social convention. This sums up, more or less, to the nurse standing at the deathbed of a lot of people claiming that no one ever asks to see their bank account in their last moments of life. i.e. you deceive yourself when it is pride that you base your self-worth on.

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>>24520701
>how the early modern political philosophers gradually sought to reject God, Christianity, and the Catholic Church as a legitimate frame of reference for justice. And thus, they looked to other possible frames to ground their thinking.
aka the enlightenment. The reason, I believe, was "to stop wars of religion" (see Whatmore). How did they concoct it: either as separation between state and church, or a different configuration of retaining state & church.
>Some choose man. Others choose nature.
Man is not nature? Your ‘natural’ inclinations are not nature? It is a separation of state a church to look at human nature, something Rousseau explicated. Besides, ‘nature' used to mean God: the "natural" part of natural jurisprudence has been God up to the enlightenment. Natural right/obligation as well, used to mean God-given right/obligation. Justice used to flow from what God said we ought to do. Locke innovated on this, in that you may legitimately resist the state if it does not adhere to God's law - as opposed to only coercive obedience (what Hobbes said). This is the problem Rousseau sought to solve with radical direct democracy (which he knew wasn’t possible, but that’s another story). And no doubt it is progressive: he wanted /reform/.

Additionally, there is no “mixing and matching” political moralism and political naturalism without contradiction. You cannot but be on one of the sides. Rousseau is a naturalist: he sees morality as part of /human nature/. Not something /outside/ of human nature, because then he would have been a moralist.
>Whatever reconciliation Rousseau tries to do, I get the sense that it is nearly always with the tone of "making the best of a bad situation".
Politics exists to make the best of a bad situation: we cannot but meddle in each others shit every once in a while, because i want shit, you want shit, we still have to figure this shit out when our shit conflicts.

>>24520716
>Can't you feel the raw passion
I don’t care about passion when discussing political theory, I care about arguments and claims, and what you are bringing in only confirms my point.
>keeping a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our egoism, must have been the happiest and most stable of epochs.
What have I been arguing Rousseau has been arguing: balanced growth.

>>24520826
>>24520841
>This is the point of political theory. It is inherently non-ideal
This reads as utterly presumptive to me. There are three dimensions to political theory. What is the best political system? This is the ideal. What is the best feasible political system? This is the real (with moral realism). What is the most stable political system (this is the moral agnosticism or antirealism)? There is always the question of the good, and the extent to which you reconcile this question determines how everything else falls into line. How could there not be? There is always the implication of the good behind justice.

If the good is not a concern, if the good cannot be spelled out in clear terms (and is not treated with some degree of caution), or if the good is decisively taken to be a fiction, then political theory does not even reach the level of philosophy. Why would you even bother? Political theory then becomes a practical problem for technology and method to fix. The concerns over equality would only be merited because we lack the social techniques to make people apathetic about inequality. If equality is actually a concern beyond social stabilization, then we have entered back into the realm of the ideal.

>Sure it is self-deception
I don't know why you honed in on self-deception. I'm pointing out the decision to deceive other people, which could in principle be entirely self-aware. The problem is not only do you give out false affirmation, but you receive affirmation of questionable veracity in return. See the problem? Self-deception is an element to the story, sure, but we are not at that level of analysis yet.

>Man is not nature?
Possibly! The idea that men are mere animals, products of Darwinian evolution, was not as pervasive or as intense prior to the 19th century. People recognized that, in some sense, men were animals, but most placed a sharp distinction between nature and society. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a need to conduct thought experiments about a "state of nature" in the first place.

>Besides, ‘nature' used to mean God: the "natural" part of natural jurisprudence has been God up to the enlightenment.
It depends on who you look at and how far back you go. You can argue that Scholastic natural law theory tied together God, man, nature, Church, and politics into one neat-package. But it was not always like that, and it quickly unraveled into its constituent elements with the Renaissance.

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>>24520826
>>24520841
>Additionally, there is no “mixing and matching” political moralism and political naturalism without contradiction
If you believe that morality lies in nature, or that there are moral facts, then this is perfectly legitimate. It depends on the framework you are working with, the hierarchy of the ideas, and the relationships between them. This is what I am trying to communicate: there was a flourishing of schools like how the Presocratic era of Greece or the Hundred Schools era of China was teeming with competing explanations. And because there was no "one" explanation to rule them all, different thinkers sought different measures independently (measures that were different from that aforementioned Scholastic natural law nucleus). Some chose nature, others chose man, some chose reason, others came up with other novel frameworks, a few attempted reconciliations, etc.

I agree that the attempt to "mix and match", in certain ways, leads to problems. But the inability to offer inclusive explanations for the entire commonwealth is also a problem as well. So, the contradiction is needed for a sustainable system in the end. Politics is messy, as you've rightfully noted. But I digress.

>I don’t care about passion when discussing political theory, I care about arguments and claims, and what you are bringing in only confirms my point.
I think you might be arguing for the sake of argument, now. In the beginning, you portrayed Rousseau as a sober thinker, who is not particularly attached to the concepts that he analyzes. This is where I enter the thread:
>>24514016
>>24514484
Now you've back-tracked from "I think we're reading two different Rousseaus" to "I don't care what they wrote and how they wrote it." Which I think is just a disingenuous change of goalposts here.

>What have I been arguing Rousseau has been arguing: balanced growth.
Balanced growth, like in an economic sense? No, Rousseau is looking for something deeper, something far more moralistic (in the sense of "the Good" and not the mere fact that people have preferences). And what balances the growth? Answer: virtue which surpasses what nature establishes, without sinking below what was found in the state of nature. This is the gauntlet I was referring to, and why I harped so much on amour de soi and amour-propre. Amour-propre is like an abyss of nothingness which threatens to consume society in an apocalyptic fever when it no longer serves virtue.

>>24511489 (OP)
You very obviously don’t speak French. First off, your sentence is grammatically incorrect. Secondly, “amour de soi” and “amour-propre” are synonymous. Did you google translate that sentence?

“Self-esteem” is better translated as “estime personelle.” What is the point of coming here to write this basic bitchc google-translate sentence as if you spoke French? How long have you been learning, one week? You look like a retard. Learn French.

This is the guy and ironically with Volatire who gave to France their Jokah moment.

>>24520921
Do the French not teach Rousseau in school anymore? I hope you're not a native speaker.

>>24520959
Your sentence means “love of self, not, self love.” Do you see how retarded you sound? You don’t know French.

>>24520966
You must be trolling.

>>24521007
You got exposed. Stop pretending to know French on 4channel for extra upvotes lmao

>>24520966
Ntas, but *Rousseau* distinguishes between amour de soi and amour-propre. You would do well to see how by reading him.

>>24521025
We read Rousseau in what is your middle school here. He’s entry-level and not taken seriously. You don’t speak French.

>>24520966
>>24521025
And not just Rousseau, but La Rochefoucauld.

>>24521029
Sounds like a sidestep, a goalpost change, and cope. But keep pretending French speaking and reading authors who distinguished between amour de soi and amour-propre didn't because you don't.

>>24521039
The word literally mean the same thing. He just gave them a technical meaning that doesn’t exist in the language. Philosophers abuse language a lot, which is why nobody cares. The definitions he gave these words have no relation to the meaning of the words themselves. The words have the same meaning. Love of self vs. self-love. For some reason you thought it was clever to make a grammatically incorrect sentences in French then translate it poorly into English for what? To try to pretend you know French for anons? Embarassing.

Mais bon, comme tu veux, j t’ai dit qu’il n’est personne ici en France, autre bourgeois sans aucune importance. Mais je bande, tu viens me sucer cette bite la ?

>>24521091
>The word literally mean the same thing.
They don't, nor is their use simply and consistently equivalent, since, again, La Rochefoucauld and his circle recognized and used this distinction.

>He just gave them a technical meaning that doesn’t exist in the language.
It's hardly technical and it's a distinction that preceded him by a century. Maybe you just don't know how language works, such that you have an autistic demand that they be frozen in meaning according to how you use it.

>Philosophers abuse language a lot, which is why nobody cares.
Using language to draw distinctions isn't an abuse, retard.

>The definitions he gave these words have no relation to the meaning of the words themselves.
"Rise and shine" is a hendiadys meaning "wake up," you gonna cry about that use not corresponding to specific meanings of "rise" and "shine"?

>The words have the same meaning. Love of self vs. self-love.
If you're going to be pretend to be a stickler, you could always pretend harder by recognizing the differences between "soi" and "propre." Besides which, no one denied that casual French speakers might not use those differently, but in a thread *on Rousseau*, about a distinction *Rousseau and predecessors made*, it's relevant to bring it up.

>For some reason you thought it was clever to make a grammatically incorrect sentences in French then translate it poorly into English for what?
"To make a grammatically incorrect sentences" and "the word literally mean" are grammatically incorrect; "to make grammatically incorrect sentences" and "the word literally means" are grammatically correct, retard.

Babble all you want, all I hear is "je pleure la nuit le jour."

>>24521091
dude shut up you autistic nigger, this bait isn't funny

>>24521169
>tries to learn french to read entry level philosophers that are irrelevant to the french today
>fails
>writes incorrect FSL sentences on 4channel for Le ebin upbotes to try to win the internet
>corrected by superior huge cock mec (me)
>still seething because he doesn’t know french
Continue stp, ça m’amuse trop

>>24521176
You should have tried to learn a language better suited to your IQ such as esperanto, spanish, or a pidgin

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>>24520873
Political theory, at least in the 18th century, and also for Rousseau, is the question of legitimate authority, ie: how can we have a legitimate authority? When someone has jurisdictional authority, you have a content-independent and preemptive reason to obey the law; legitimate authority is then the lawfulness or the moral rightness of the authority. So it would be morally wrong to disobey the state if it has legitimate jurisdictional authority. This was what early modern political philosophers, including Rousseau, were looking for.

Three types of moral reasoning exist: theological, moralist, or naturalist. The first two overlap to an extent.

The first claims that authority is legitimate when it aligns with God's word. The second claims that authority is legitimate when it aligns with an external good reason (so it abandons God and leaves open what it is, that is outside of humans that claim what’s good or bad). The third claims that authority is legitimate when it aligns with an internal good reason.

The first one nobody cares about anymore, since they have a tendency to cause wars of religion, or in Hume's words, superstitious fanaticism. Ironically being a concern of Rousseau as well, as I have argued Rousseau argues: the problem of revolutions (think about the situation of France at that time, for example). The second maintains that "there is a good moral reason" to obey. An example is the Kantian (deontology), where you obey because it is your duty, and this is all concocted through pure reason, so, in short, it is /purely/ rational to obey. Pure reason is "external" to the individual, therefore you can say "there is a good reason to obey“. The third maintains that "I have a good moral reason" to obey. An example of this is Rousseau, because moral beliefs (is it right, is it wrong), according to Rousseau, stem from individual belief through societal /convention/. Proof of this is found in the 2nd discourse where he describes the development of convention: think of the game theory of catching the hare vs the deer or something - once mutual benefit is recognized, promises or compacts will occur according to Rousseau.

>>24521189
>>tries to learn french to read entry level philosophers that are irrelevant to the french today
I don't give a fuck what modern Frenchcucks think.

>>writes incorrect FSL sentences on 4channel for Le ebin upbotes to try to win the internet
Maybe you don't know what "nta" or its plural mean, but my first post is here, >>24521025, and I was enjoying the effortpostets above until you decided to bluster your way in. Mdr, killer retard.

>>24521199
1/2
You’re a

(2/2)
>>24520873

The "I have a good moral reason” to obey is what Rousseau literally wanted. The will of each of the individuals will the general will so there’s a radically democratic pact of the multitude (a Hobbesian term, which is the opposition of ‘a people’) who consent each individually to a totally direct democracy. Democratic popular sovereignty is inalienable and cannot coexist with anything but the most strictly democratic collective self-determination. This is (in your words) very idealistic, because like I mentioned earlier, even Rousseau knew it was impossible. This is starting from equality, or your “ideal political theory”. Why is this the best? Because it recognizes the moral psychological makeup of people living together, which is a combination of the natural features of pity, self-respect, and self-esteem. Everyone wills the natural wills (pity + amour de soi meme) and the artificial will (amour propre). But amour propre is destructive when driven too far, as my analysis of Rousseau’s second discourse suggests. The general will, then, is formed as collective affirmation of law, equality, justice, by controlling amour propre (exactly what the complete Social Contract is about). So, your “real political theory” of Rousseau is the same. Your third type is nonsensical, because stability is a moral good.

And here we come back again, to Rousseau’s theory to stop revolutions from occuring, namely agrarian law and demographic relocation so that the state could be dissolved into his legitimate authority.

>>24521199
2/2 gay retard

>>24521203
Sorry but we french don’t really care about or appreciate what your amerifatts have to say about our writings. Go read something your speed like rupi kaur

>good thread about french philosophy going
>a frog joins and instantly ruins it
What did he mean by this?

>>24521217
>"we french"
>he admits it
Opinion disregarded. Your durka democracy is a joke.

By the way, I do not agree with his ideas, because he made the mistake to assume that the law comes before the judge, more or less, so in that sense, in my opinion, he loses points. But he is very consistent, and it is an interesting theory that tries to improve upon his contemporaries. It is also a man who's regretfully easy to misunderstand. Partially because of the density of his writing, and, probably also, as you like to say, his passion.

So, my whole tirade here over the past couple of days, hopefully nuanced the image of the man, who, although unconventional in demeanor (of dumping babies) and passionate style of writing, is not the wild contrarian he's often believed to be if you look towards his full body of work, the sources he bases his writings on, and the situation he found himself in.

>>24521268
It is well known in France that Rousseau was a homosexual.

>>24521292
He purportedly had a menage-a-trois. Leave your homosexual takes out unless it relates to the social contract, I know some trace them back to that. The anon is just a disgruntled metaphysics poster with a confused sexual identity. Unless your post is to keep them away you're only going to make matters worse.

What did Rousseau mean by man being fundamentally good? Did he mean it in an anti-Hobbes sense or did he mean something different?

https://newcriterion.com/article/rousseau-the-origins-of-liberalism/
succinctly BTFO him in his entirety

>>24522111
he never said that. the closest he ever got to saying that was saying that solitary primitive man didn't have enough power or technology to sufficiently enslave other people. that's it.

>>24521199
Legitimate authority is basically the same as good authority. That's it. If there's no question of the good, then it's just legalese and wordplay, and you can always have the law assert itself anyway so it becomes a moot point.

>>24521205
If stability is a moral good in itself, then monarchy, dictatorship, and democracy are equally viable solutions. And already here you are mixing the types. Stability is just one of many possible ends one could have in type 3.

>>24522111
He means that people are born good and only become evil because of socializing with people. Eg a toddler gets pranked or punched by his brother. All this little influences slowly turn people evil.
Or, in other words, society replaces the natural flight/flight response into an erroneous good/bad concept. He actually argues that men would be more inherently moral if they didn't have a concept of good and bad, and if you raise a child that way he will become morally superior to his peers when he enters adulthood. Obviously to master such a feat is very difficult especially if your method achieves too much success. Incapable of doing harm to a fly for no reason, this boy may be bullied by his evil and falsely raised peers severely and become evil as a result. This educational take has to be combined with training in physical strength and combat as well as exposition to the cruelty of nature. He also needs to be warned about the danger of sluts, for example by taking him to a hospital for sexually diseased in his teens. The goal is to traumatize him so much that he won't engage in sex before marriage. These are just side notes though.

>>24522111
What the (>>24523015) said, he never really said man being fundamentally good, but he did say that man is yet to be burdened by vices, which is what emerges thanks to society (after agriculture; when man becomes civilized).

Rousseau is not very anti-Hobbes. e.g. he preferred Hobbes' despotism (a representative state) if his theory couldn't obtain (and Rousseau knew it couldn't). The problem with Hobbes, according to these later authors, was that Hobbes took the societal necessity of 'authority' too far. This was the reason for later authors to come up with more historicized theories of legitimate authority that gave more room for the cause of society being liberty in addition to authority, in the process from the state of nature to civil society. For Hobbes, need and recognition as utility (i.e. useful), was a cause for society. For Rousseau as well, but he placed the development of recognition-seeking, for Europe at least, into a later stage of development: after the development of agriculture. Indigence (need) and utility were also causes of society for Rousseau, but the recognition-seeking part developed later and not as a cause of society. For Rousseau, utility lay in the conventions that emerged through sustained acknowledgment of the better fulfillment of mutual need through cooperation, more or less.

In short, separation from Hobbes starts with what utility entails, when taken as a cause for society: utility is first an answer to "help me!" instead of an answer to "love me!" for Europeans. He historicized, like his contemporaries, the development of psychological dispositions together with societal stages, from the state of nature to civil society - something Hobbes had not really done. In this, you see, that the use of society, is also /gaining/ freedom both from needs of food and shelter, and general helplessness.

An obvious consequence of this, is that Rousseau clearly wrote into his conceptual history, economics (with the fulfillment of mutual need) as a necessary feature of the development of society. Something rosy-eyed interpreters have a hard time to accept.

>>24511489 (OP)
Someone needs to make a drawing about that part in confessions where he runs naked backwardly towards random women trying to get spanked but ends up being chased and cornered by a dude instead.

>>24512774
>>24513645
Old rumors claimed Rousseau was actually sterile and the wife keep cucking him, so he sent all the bastards away

>>24521199
>>24521205
I appreciate coming bare with the presuppositions that you are working with. Tbh, I generally disagree with the way you go about everything, but I also realize that this is a pretty solid and coherent way of approaching the topic. I just think there is something missing from political philosophy as philosophy when we fail to apply the appropriate sieves and restructure accordingly, or when we remove the question of the good from the discussion of political philosophy (otherwise it becomes political technique, really). Anyway, I think this leg of the conversation has taken its course. I've made my stance clear, and I think I've demonstrated Rousseau's passion in a way that neither you nor I could neglect any longer.

We could back-track a bit and talk about how amour-propre, luxury, etc., fit together in a mechanistic perspective. I had been itching to turn the conversation into that direction before we had a lengthy debate about priors.

bump