Rousseau would argue, for instance, that reason engenders egocentrism and alienates individuals from one another.

Written in an age utterly enamored with the idea that all human problems are amenable to reason, Rousseau's works emphasize unforeseen problems that can arise when would-be reformers and revolutionaries disregard human nature and the power of affect. It is perhaps most accurate to characterize his thought as straddling the Enlightenment and Romantic movements. In light of Rousseau's radical critiques not only of existing social and political institutions, but of fellow thinkers advocating reason-based alternatives, scholars have long debated whether Rousseau is an Enlightenment or anti-Enlightenment philosopher. This presents a dilemma: How can a real-world democratic polity of the kind Rousseau describes legitimately resolve conflicts between self and society? Much of On the Social Contract is devoted to this question, though Rousseau's answer has failed to satisfy many critics, both in his own time and in ours. Rather, the general will is something like the common good, or the general welfare, but without reference to individuals' particular, selfish interests. The locus of democratic political authority is at the center of On the Social Contract, in which Rousseau advances a notoriously difficult concept: the 'general will.' As he explains it, the general will is expressly not what one might expect to emerge from democratic deliberation and voting, i.e., either the sum of all individual preferences or a majority consensus.

(Wikimedia Commons) Although he died 11 years before the French Revolution, Rousseau’s works have often been blamed for its excesses. And so, while Rousseau's Discourse treats human nature, his follow-up works Emile and On the Social Contract (both published in 1762) explore the sort of education and political order best suited to this nature. Like Plato and Machiavelli before him, Rousseau refused to separate concerns of politics and ethics from those of education. The Discourse on Inequality's conception of natural man – as uncorrupted by social institutions and systems of artificial distinction – sits in the background of Rousseau's later work, On the Social Contract.

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