Discourse On The Origin of Inequality

Research papers on Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality explicate the philosophical work. As one of the great philosophical works, your research paper can reflect on the tenants of Rousseau's work.

An examination of the text of Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, finds Rousseau taking both reasonable and unreasonable stands for human beings. Insofar as he is talking about "real" people and not conjectured ones, we can make some judgments about his knowledge and understanding of human nature. For example, in his Dedication to Geneva, his letter to the sovereign lords of the city, in his presentation of the Discourse, Rousseau writes, "People once accustomed to masters are not in a condition to do without them. If they attempt to shake off the yoke they still more estrange themselves from freedom[and] hand themselves over to seducers, who only make their chains heavier than before". It appears that Rousseau has little faith in rebels. It does not appear that he can see that the heart of a rebel exists in a real human being, with a unique mind and heart. Therefore, by speaking in the general, he misses the value of the particular-in this case, the individual is sacrificed in favor of the mass of humanity. In fact, his arguments are nearly always about the general and not the specific; therefore a questioning reader may find resistance at Rousseau's tendencies to lump human beings together into a kind of mob consciousness.

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

On the other hand, Woman in the natural state differentiated herself from Man when She became sedentary, tended the hut and children while men went out to seek food. Somewhere between the sedentary hut-woman and the street whore is Real Woman we are to suppose.