Philosopher Profiles

Rousseau was born Swiss, but was also born free. He spent much time living in and then being kicked out of many European countries. This was because he was something of a ladies man and even by continental standards Rousseau was said to suffer from a greatly inflamed amour-improper. He was deeply egalitarian in his taste for women however; happy to sleep with both nobles and savages as long as they were generally willing.

Disappointingly for him, his philosophical musings led him to the conclusion that in contemporary society his romantic notion of the ideal woman, both noble and savage, could never be realised and he had to settle for corrupted women. To mediate his frustration, everywhere he went he put them in chains.

A variety of strange views underpinned his educational thinking. Education firstly involved singling out young boys with girly sounding names (Emile) and whisking them away to a country house away from prying-parents. The education then consisted in sustained acts of cruelty designed to teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget. Examples include not letting the boy fly kites (that was too girly, even for Emile), getting the boy ‘accidentally’ lost in the woods, as well as making the boy solve maths problems without knowing it by distracting him with cakes.

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