Rousseau and the hypothetical State of Nature: condition of civil-political man’s

Abstract

This article has as an objective the analysis of the conceptions of State of Nature and Civil-Political State in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (1712-1778) thought. It intends to develop a reflection concerning the connections proposed by the referred author amongst what he considered as State of Nature, thought as a deductive hypothesis to explain the origin of the present state of social oppression, and the development of this same state, presented as an Illegitimate Civil State. In Discourse on the origin and foundation of the inequality of mankind Rousseau postulates the theory that, not having inequalities in the State of nature, one can affirm that this was the happy stage of human history and that civil society is fruit of a perfectibility and, simultaneously, of a process of man’s corruption. Keywords: Rousseau. State of Nature. Natural man. Civil society. Natural Right.