The Sublime Science of Simple Souls: Rousseau's Philosophy of Truth

Abstract

SummaryThough it has rarely been the subject of academic criticism, there is a philosophy of truth that animates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's broader philosophical system. This philosophy of truth was unique for its time—in the same way as the whole of Rousseau's thought—in its emphasis on feeling over reason, the heart over the mind, the simple over the sophisticated, the useful over the demonstrable, the personal over the systematic. Rousseau's philosophy of truth might be more accurately called a ‘philosophy of truthseeking’ or an ‘ethics of truthseeking’, because its focus is on the pursuit and acquisition of truth rather than on the nature of truth itself. What was needed, Rousseau believed, was a guide back to the simple truths of human happiness—truths that were immediately apparent to us in our natural state but have become opaque in society. This article describes Rousseau's normative philosophy of truthseeking, of what human beings must do if they hope to (re)discover the truths of human happiness. This philosophy can be summarised as utility, autonomy, immediacy and simplicity in pursuit of what Rousseau called the ‘truths that pertain to the happiness of mankind’.