Rousseau’s The Social Contract, one of the most influential classics of political philosophy, is most misinterpreted and least comprehended. For its theoretical structure, The Social Contract presented the conceptual framework of political philosophy, a result of excellent combination of natural political view, Montesquieu’s “determinism of geographic environment” and modern western theory of social contract. It is just because of differences or conflicts between the three theories of political philosophy in logic and thinking that this classic of Rousseau’s is filled with amazing “original” insights and paradoxical confusion.

political philosophy; Rousseau; The Social Contract; “general will”; “sovereign”; “legislator”; Montesquieu; determinism of geographic environment