ABSTRACT

This essay tries to bring some nuance to the ordinary image of Rousseau as an amateur enemy of sciences. Through the account of his intellectual evolution, and his personal experience in different fields (such as cryptography, chemistry, anatomy, geometry, cosmography, proto-ethnology and anthropology, and botany), it builds a more realistic view of Rousseau’s perception of sciences: the one of a well-documented and educated man of science, accusing the scientific misuses, abuses, and illusions of his century.