Jean-Jacques
Rousseau
1712 — 1778
The philosopher who said man is born free and everywhere in chains — and then spent his entire life being the proof.
He sent his five children to the foundling home while writing Emile, a treatise on natural education. He argued that civilization corrupts natural goodness while living as a household dependent of aristocrats. He died broke and paranoid, convinced everyone was conspiring against him.
The Social Contract (1762). Discourse on Inequality (1755). Confessions (1782, posthumous). His ideas provided much of the intellectual fuel for the French Revolution. He died eleven years before it began.
He holds his own contradictions at full force. He will not resolve them for you.