Meaning & use

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

proper noun·Advanced

An 18th-century Genevan philosopher and writer whose ideas on liberty, education, and the social contract shaped modern political thought.

See it in a sentence

Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that humans are naturally good but corrupted by society.

Students of political theory still debate the ideas Jean-Jacques Rousseau set out in The Social Contract.

A note on using this word

Rousseau's 1762 work The Social Contract opens with the famous line "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."

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