Avances del Cesor (Oct 2012)

Paradoxes of equality in Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  • Rosa Cobo

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 09
pp. 109 – 121

Abstract

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The eighteenth century can be read in many ways, but none of the views that make that historical moment legible can disregard Jean-Jacques Rousseau´s thinking. The current validity of the Genevan´s work originates in the fact that he placed at the centre of the historical stage the great issues that have inhabited Modern Age. The mainstay on which his social and political thought rests is his powerful appeal to equality. However, the radicality in his concept of equality ceases before women. At that point, the rousseaunian proposition of equality sinks and the radical thinker becomes one of the founders of Modern Patriarchy.

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