Political Science · Western Political Thought
UGC NET December 2014 Political Science
For whom of the following, science is the fruit of idle curiosity, philosophy is mere intellectual frippery, and the amenities of polite life are tinsel?
AThomas Hobbes
BJohn Locke
CJJ Rousseau ✓ Correct
DKarl Marx
Correct answer: (C) JJ Rousseau — This dismissal of science, philosophy, and polite refinement belongs to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Explanation
★This dismissal of science, philosophy, and polite refinement belongs to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
★In his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences of 1750 he argued that the progress of the arts and sciences corrupts morals.
★Rousseau held that civilisation breeds vanity, luxury, and inequality, distancing man from his natural goodness.
★He prized natural sentiment and simple virtue over the artificial refinements of polite society.
★This romantic critique of civilisation sets him against the rationalism of Hobbes, Locke, and the Enlightenment.
★It is the seed of his later idea that man is born free but everywhere corrupted by society.
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