The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers

by Eric Weiner

Rousseau’s legacy is vast. It includes Hallmark cards, Hollywood tearjerkers, heart-shaped emojis, and tell-all memoirs. If you’ve ever said, “I need a good cry,” you can thank Rousseau. If you’ve ever said, “Use your imagination,” you’re being Rousseauvian. If, in the heat of an argument, you’ve actually uttered the words “I don’t care if it makes no sense, it’s how I feel,” Rousseau is your man. If you’ve ever answered heartbreak with a long and angry walk, Rousseau. If your spouse has ever dragged you on a ten-mile trek on a damp, cold day, because “it will be good for you,” you can thank, or curse, Rousseau. Because of him, we think and feel differently, and we think about our feelings differently. If Descartes was the modern era’s philosopher of the head, Rousseau was its philosopher of the heart. He elevated the passions and made feelings acceptable, not on par with reason, but close. This wasn’t easy. During Rousseau’s time, the Age of Reason, imaginative thinking was suspect. Two centuries later, no less a rationalist than Albert Einstein declared that “imagination is more important than knowledge.”