Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Genevan · 1712–1778
Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer whose political and educational writings influenced the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the development of modern political and educational thought. Best known for The Social Contract, Emile, or On Education, and Discourse on Inequality. His ideas about the "noble savage" corrupted by civilisation and the formative role of upbringing fed directly into Romantic thinking. Famously hypocritical in private life — he abandoned his five children to a foundling hospital while writing prescriptively about how children should be raised.