Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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