University of Makati

College of Computer Science

ARTS AND HUMANITIES

The Social Contract

What is the Story About?
The Social Contract's fundamental point is that
government obtains its right to exist and rule by "the
consent of the governed." This may not sound like a
far-fetched concept today, but when The Social
Contract was written, it was.

Author
• by Jean Jacques Rousseau
• translated with an Introduction by G.D. H. Cole
(London and Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1923).

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Philosopher)- Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in the

independent Calvinist city-state of Geneva in 1712, the son of Isaac Rousseau, a watchmaker,
and Suzanne Bernard. Rousseau’s mother died nine days after his birth, with the consequence
that Rousseau was raised and educated by his father until the age of ten. Isaac Rousseau was one
of the small minority of Geneva’s residents who enjoyed the rank of citizen of Geneva, a status
which Jean-Jacques was to inherit. According to Rousseau’s own subsequent accounts, the
haphazard education that he received from his father included both the inculcation of republican
patriotism and the reading of classical authors such as Plutarch who dealt with the Roman
republic. On his father’s exile from the city to avoid arrest, Jean-Jacques was put in the care of a
pastor at nearby Bossey and subsequently apprenticed to an engraver. Rousseau left the city at
the age of sixteen and came under the influence of a Roman Catholic convert noblewoman,
Francoise-Louise de la Tour, Baronne de Warens. Mme de Warens arranged for Rousseau to
travel to Turin, where he converted to Roman Catholicism in April 1728. Rousseau spent some
time working as a domestic servant in a noble household in Turin, and during this time a
shameful episode occurred in which he falsely accused a fellow servant of the theft of a ribbon.
This act marked him deeply and he returns to it in his autobiographical works.
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College of Computer Science

ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Theme of the Book

Theme 1 – Human Freedom and Society

Theme 2 – Sovereignty, Citizenship, and Direct Democracy
Theme 3 – Government and Separation of Powers
Theme 4 – National Longevity and Moral Virtue

Summary of the Plot

▪ The Social Contract argued against monarchs having moral right to legislate. Only the
sovereign citizens, according to Rousseau, have the all-powerful right.
Rising Action
- Despite the fact that assemblies are destined to fall, citizens must fight for their survival.
They can’t hire representatives to uphold the general will because sovereignty cannot be
transferred.

Characters
Thomas Hobbes - Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), whose current reputation rests largely on his
political philosophy, was a thinker with wide-ranging interests. In philosophy, he defended a
range of materialist, nominalist, and empiricist views against Cartesian and Aristotelian
alternatives.
John Locke – John Locke (b. 1632, d. 1704) was a British philosopher, Oxford academic and
medical researcher. Locke’s monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) is
one of the first great defenses of modern empiricism and concerns itself with determining the
limits of human understanding in respect to a wide spectrum of topics.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (born June 28, 1712, Geneva,
Switzerland—died July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France), Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and
political theorist whose treatises and novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution and
the Romantic generation.
 University of Makati

College of Computer Science

ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Read Here:
https://books.google.com.ph/books/about/The_Social_Contract.html?id=H_XkAAAAMAAJ&pr
intsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false