Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1712-1778. Genevan philosopher, writer and composer. Advocated the equality of all human beings and government by "general will" (volonté générale) (see also: Contract Theory). Furthermore, he criticised civilisation as a corruptive force and claimed that children were good from birth. In his Reveries of the Solitary Walker (1782), Rousseau elaborates a topic from earlier works: solitude in nature as the precondition to the awareness of oneself, the timeless and "simple feeling of existence".