PHIL 2027 Philosophy of Rousseau Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (‘DSA’), pt. II

Recall Diderot: knowledge leads to virtue The task of the Encyclopédie is to organise many authors and consultants to gather and transmit all knowledge worth knowing in order to make humanity ‘more virtuous and more happy’. –Denis Diderot, ‘Definition of an Encyclopedia’, in University of Chicago Readings in the History of Western Civilization, vol. 7, p.71. Diderot’s view is standard Enlightenment thinking; How does it contrast with Rousseau’s view of the social and moral effects of the S & A?

Rousseau’s view (par. 61) ‘O virtue! sublime science of simple souls! Are so many efforts and so much equipment required in order to know you? Are not your principles engraved in all hearts [like the laws of Sparta], and is it not enough…to return into oneself and to listen to the voice of one’s conscience in the silence of the passions?’

Question In the second part of the DSA, Rousseau argues that civilised societies decay due to the luxury brought about by the Arts and Sciences. This is because luxury destroys military virtue. He names more examples where riches are defeated by poverty. Is the point of a man or a society to be a battle-worthy? However, Arts and Sciences enable man to achieve unprecedented things; surely, they are not responsible for such weakening and decay.

Question (pars ) Rousseau suggests a strategy of discrimination between great minds and everyone else. The former, such as Bacon, Descartes and Newton, contribute to ‘the happiness of peoples’ through counseling kings, while the masses live in simplicity and piety. Rousseau appears to want the elites to pursue sciences and arts in the right direction and with political power: –this is a radical claim of human potential and its limits, which might be highly questionable (especially in our age colored by the ethos of equality). –how can these two groups, the best and the rest, be selected and organized? –does Rousseau have in mind a set of political techniques like those used by Plato's Republic, including systematic deception of citizens with the so-called "noble-lie", and a sophisticated eugenics program?