Rousseau's Social Contract Logical Architecture And Historical Influence

Rousseau, together with other thinkers in the period of the Enlightenment, made their own unique contributions to the overthrowing of feudalism. However, there existed a great disagreement between Rousseau and the Enlightenment lamp, which lay in the personality charm of Rousseau's thought. Cassirer held the idea that Rousseau belonged to the Enlightenment camp in a splitting way, and that he transferred the core of the Enlightenment and attacked the premise of the Enlightenment movement ------science, reason and progress. Most thinkers in the Enlightenment firmly believed that scientific civilization and free economy of capitalism could held move the society forward, and the social progress was pictured as a continuously upward going chain in their minds. The political thought of the Enlightenment thinkers was mastly tinted with a distinct and mild colour. Although they attacked feudalism, they stuck to the ideal of reforming instead of overthrowing monarchism. In his attacks against the civilized societies of privately-owned system, Rousseau showed his doubts and objections towards the mass production and free objections of capitalism, and the social effects of science and art. He pointed out that the progress of history was one filled with resistance and contradictions. The political ideal Rousseau held was a direct democratic system, which centered on people's sovereignty. And Rousseau's theory of social contract was elaborated and demonstrated about the very purpose. This article will, by analyzing the logical structure of Rousseau's theory of social contract, dissect the logical process of Rousseau's thought and the advantages and disadvantages of his theory. This article can be divided into three parts.The first part will generally introduce the social, political and cultural features of in the period of the Enlightenment movent, and the subjective factors which gave birth to Rousseau's theory of social contract was the product of combining the spiritual requirements of the times with his personal life experiences. At the same time, it will preliminarily illustrate the personality features on which Rousseau's theory of social contract differs from other theories of social contract.The second part lays emphasis on analyzing the logical structure of Rousseau's theory of social contract. By going along with the logical process of Rousseau's thought, this part will study his theory of social contract from four aspects------logical conclusion, logical starting-point, logical evolution and logical conclusion, so as to comb the logical threads of Rousseau's theory of social contract. It was by reflecting and criticizing the theme of the Enlightenment and by extolling the emotions of "natural beings" and inquiring into the origin of human beings' unequality that Rousseau discovered the origin which resulted in the tribulation and degeneration of "social beings". He intended to establish a holy bourgeois utopia by concluding equal social contracts. The third part will mainly discuss the historical influence of Rousseau's theory of social contract. In the field of social practice, Rousseau's theory of social contract, on the one hand, was made to be the spiritual flag of the French Revolution, and it enlightened the outbreak of the French Revolution. On the other hand, It still affected the politics system of the America. In the field of philosophical ideology, Rousseau's theory of social contract, with its sensitivity to social heresy and its attention to moral issues, provided spiritual inspiration for birth of German classical philosophy. Moreover, Rousseau's theory of social contract was also widely researched and discussed by marxist., which opened wide space for pushing forward the philosophical ideology of human beings.