Být člověkem a být filosofem podle J.-J. Rousseaua

The present paper aims to analyse how Rousseau conceives the possibility of being a philosopher and how he views the task of philosophy. While Rousseau is very critical towards contemporary philosophers and philosophy in general, he does describe his own enquiry as a philosophical one. In his view, the proper task of philosophy is ‘the knowledge of man’ that can be also understood as ‘the knowledge of oneself’. As Rousseau states in the Second Discourse, such knowledge is to be accomplished through our reason, yet the philosophy of his time fails in this task because the philosophers let themselves be dominated by their opinions. This claim is related to Rousseau’s distinction between love of oneself (amour de soi) and self-love (amour-propre). While reason is present in men naturally, it develops only under necessity related to the progress of society and social passions. Therefore, it cannot serve as the criterion of rightful conduct; this task belongs to conscience. As has been shown by Derathé, only man truly listening to his conscience can use his reason properly. Rather than to direct one’s self-love in a right direction, it seems that the solution of the problem for a philosopher is to convert self-love back to love of one-self to recreate the original unity of his person. Being human and being a philosopher thus becomes the same thing and the turn towards oneself can become the foundation of true self-understanding as well as true relationship to others.