On Rousseau's Thoughts Of The Opposition Of The Nature And The Civilization

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1788) is one of the greatest French thinkers in the 18th century. His works involves philosophy, politics, literature, pedagogy, aesthetics, ethnics and etc.. Together with the representatives of Encyclopedists, Voltaire, Montesquieu and Diderot and etc., Rousseau was regarded as the enlightening thinker who had inspired the people brains for the arriving revolution. The enlightening thinker advocated the science, regarded everything with the reasoning judgment, and thought that the growth of the knowledge would naturally make the society progress and the morality perfect. However, they exaggerated the function of the reason and simplified the progress of the human society. There was "an insurmountably huge gap" between Rousseau's thought and other enlightening thinkers'. He praised the natural state and the primitive man that were out of control of the reason and doubted the reason which was acclaimed by the other enlightening thinkers. He thought the reason why human came down was because two of the technology, metallurgy and agriculture, were invented, and the progress of society followed the degeneration of the morality generally, then proposed the thought of the opposition of the nature and the civilization. The thought of the opposition of the nature and the civilization that manifests in all of Rousseau's works is the main chain of Rousseau's thought through various domains. Because of the proposed thought, Rousseau is called Father of Romanticism and the earliest ancestor of the modern technological pessimism. This thesis is based on two papers written by Rousseau, "Discourse on the Sciences and Arts" and "Discourse on Inequality", then introduces and analyzes the formation background, the main content and the influence of the thought of the opposition of the nature and the civilization. Meanwhile, it compares natural law thoughts, technology pessimism and the suspicion to the reason and the civilization of Rousseau with the viewpoints of other thinkers. It is helpful to understand the great person objectively and comprehensively and provide the enlightenment to the comprehensive and harmonious development of the society nowadays after analyzing this unique thought of Rousseau in detail.