CONSIDERATIONS ON THE ROUSSEAUISTIC CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM, EQUALITY AND INEQUALITY IN THE SECOND DISCOUSE

The freedom, we know, occupies a privileged place in Rousseau's interpretation about the man. It is through freedom, as we see in the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men (1755), that man defines and differentiates himself from the other animals. However, whether in the state of nature or in the civil state, freedom can not be dissociated from equality. As Derathe (1979) says, in Rousseau, a natural equality is an equal freedom. Nevertheless, if it is by freedom that the human nature is realized, then equality would be a condition sine qua non for such an achievement. It is in this spirit that the present reflection starts with the intention of putting in debate the Rousseauistic interpretation of the equality problem, precisely, in its intricate relationship with the freedom and the inequality. To do so, we will use in our itinerary the mode how Rousseau elaborates his conceptions of equality and inequality through his hypothetical history of the human race in his Second Discourse, observing some of their implications as well as differences in the state of nature.