Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

An eighteenth-century French philosopher ; one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment . He held that in the state of nature, people are good, but that they are corrupted by social institutions; this notion became a central idea of romanticism . Some of Rousseau's best-known writings are The Social Contract, an important influence on the French Revolution ; ��������, a statement of his views on education; and his autobiography , The Confessions.