Notwithstanding the general accepted understanding that Rousseau is the master of modern education reflecting the progress by enlightenment this articles suggests that Rousseau’s Emile is—as most of Rousseau’s other writings are, too—testimony to a brilliant and passionate writer expressing thoughts about his concern how to deal with passions—passion being one of the most disputed concepts in late seventeenth and in eighteenth century. The reading of Emile has therefore take into account polemic as a literary trope in Rousseau’s style (...) of writing. (shrink)

Rousseau’s discussion of education in Émile has for its essential background his rejection of a truly public education in modern society on the one hand and the rejection of the possibility of modern human beings developing in a state of natural innocence on the other hand. His suggestion in Émile is that a form of private education (“home-schooling”) is possible that preserves the inherent goodness of the natural state while at the same time providing the instruction necessary for the student (...) to become a successful social, and thus moral, person. The possibility of such an education on Rousseau’s own terms will be the central focus of this essay; though implications for education today will also be raised. (shrink)

Scholarly accounts of the training of pity in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile focus on how Emile's tutor activates the psychological mechanisms necessary for the feeling of pity in book 4 of the text. This account is inadequate, for it fails to show how Emile acquires the evaluative ability to make the judgment about who deserves pity as well as the willingness to adjudicate his own and others' interests. In this article, Wing Sze Leung argues that books 1 (...) through 3 lay the foundation by developing in Emile the attitudes and dispositions that guide him in his judgment-making about which kind of life he should pursue. Books 4 and 5 then develop Emile's ability to make interpersonal judgments of pity through habituated practice. By gradually cultivating Emile's sensitivity to the potential conflict between his self-interests and others' well-being, as well as the resolution to refrain from infringing on others' interests and to pursue the common good, Rousseau's long-term educational project molds Emile's disposition to act as justice demands. The article concludes with a brief response to some criticisms about Rousseau's educational project. (shrink)

This paper assumes the significance of Rousseau's Emile for the practice of radical education in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s. It is argued that the educational philosophy espoused in Emile is far more conservative than that actually attributed to his inspiration by some radical educators.

Rousseau's Emile has attracted an avalanche of critical responses. His theme of negative education, or as he defines it, “well-regulated freedom”, has been denounced as outright manipulation in disguise, which instead of respecting the child's autonomy and dignity, places him at the whim of the teacher's machinations and stratagems. His recommendation that the child's imagination be curtailed (that he may not acquire desires which cannot be satisfied) is widely held to militate against one of the most cherished goals (...) of education: the fostering of the natural curiosity of the child. Rousseau is also accused of professing an “ideology of childhood” which ignores the real needs of children. In the sterilized environment which Rousseau proposes for the growing child, affection, praise and approval, are some of the sacrifices made to this ideology. Furthermore, his views on women are considered degrading, outrageous and blatantly sexist. Yet despite the myriad criticisms leveled against his work, Rousseau's Emile highlights one of the most exacting challenges for education — how to educate the child without alienating him. Rousseau connects this issue with the larger problem of alienation: namely, that experienced by man within the modern social order. Rousseau's views anticipate the contemporary debate between virtue-based and deontological ethics. The purpose of this paper is (i) to describe Rousseau's diagnosis of the problem of alienation as it arises in the various spheres of human life, paying special attention to the moral domain, and (ii) to assess the solutions he offers to the problem of alienation. These solutions are based on a conception of the good life which, I argue, is unacceptable. I also argue that this conception dissipates one form of alienation only at the expense of creating another. The paper begins by tracing the changes which the concept of alienation has undergone, and consequently I draw a distinction between two kinds of alienation — conscious and unconscious. I demonstrate that even if Rousseau is successful in offering a remedy for conscious alienation, this very remedy itself gives rise to unconscious alienation. (shrink)

This article discusses Rousseau’s theory of the genesis and development of a “post-liberal self” and its political implications. In his Emile, or Education, Rousseau explores the distinctive features of the post-liberal self through Emile’s growing capacity to think in terms of his social interdependence with others and yet to maintain his critical autonomy. For Rousseau it is only such individuals with a highly developed moral and civic consciousness who are capable of articulating the general will and of properly (...) participating in a modern republic. I argue that the general will for Rousseau is therefore not a property of the community but of the post-liberal self, for whom the common good is a larger dimension of the individual good. I then discuss the political implications of this theory by relating it to The Social Contract where Rousseau urges us to examine the legitimacy of existing social norms, laws and practices. Rousseau, I conclude, is one of the great radical thinkers of self-transformation as the prerequisite for overcoming the pathologies and limitations of liberal society. (shrink)

This paper assumes the significance of Rousseau's Emile for the practice of radical education in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s. It is argued that the educational philosophy espoused in Emile is far more conservative than that actually attributed to his inspiration by some radical educators.

Rousseau's natural education is an attempt to show how the passions, if freed from the deformation caused by social opinion, can be morally upright; if the Émile is, Rousseau say, a treatise on man's natural goodness, this goodness is based on his fredom, and especially on the freedom of the passions.A educação natural de Rousseau é uma tentativa de mostrar como as paixões, se liberadas da deformação provocada pela opinião social, podem ser moralmente corretas. Se o Emílio, afirma Rousseau, (...) é um tratado sobre a bondade natural do homem, esta bondade está fundada sobre a liberdade, e, sobretudo, sobre a liberdade das paixões. (shrink)

Educational authority is an issue in contemporary democracies. Surprisingly, little attention has been given to the problem of authority in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile and his work has not been addressed in the contemporary debate on the issue of authority in democratic education. Olivier Michaud's goals are, first, to address both of these oversights by offering an original reading of the problem of authority in Emile and then to rehabilitate the notion of “educational authority” for democratic educators today. (...) Contrary to progressive readings of Emile, he argues, Rousseau's position on this issue is not reducible to “education against authority.” What appears at first glance to be an education against authority is, in a deeper sense, an education toward and even within authority. Michaud contends that we have to embrace these complexities and contradictions that inform Rousseau's work in order to gain insights into the place and role of authority in democratic education. Michaud sheds light on Rousseau's stance on authority through a close study of specific topics addressed in Emile, including negative education, opinion, one's relation to God, friendship and loving relationships, and, finally, the relation Rousseau established with his reader. (shrink)

This article considers the ways in which a series of artworks by French artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze focus on the father’s ethical education of his male children, reading these as a close visualization of the pedagogical theories of Rousseau. Through paintings that contemplate family life, religious sentiment, filial piety, obedience versus disobedience, illness, and death, Greuze’s images of male youth coalesce with the ethics promoted in Rousseau’s novel Emile—stressing in particular the compassion and good conscience that a boy should develop (...) under the guidance of his father to become a man of virtue. In so doing, the artist responds to some of the key historic issues and social beliefs affecting male youth during his era: the necessity of apprenticed boys to leave home; an idealization of country living and farming as the best occupation for the adult male; and an overwhelming concern, widespread during this heightened period of warfare and unrest preceding the French Revolution, that young men go astray when they become soldiers. (shrink)

One of the mantras of progressive education is that genuine learning ought to be exciting and pleasurable, rather than joyless and painful. To a significant extent, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is associated with this mantra. In a theme of Emile that is often neglected in the educational literature, however, Rousseau stated that “to suffer is the first thing [Emile] ought to learn and the thing he will most need to know.” Through a discussion of Rousseau's argument for the importance (...) of an education in suffering, Avi Mintz contends that the reception of Rousseau by progressives suggests a detrimental misstep in the history of educational thought, a misstep that we should recognize and correct today. We ought to revive the progressive tradition of distinguishing the valuable educational pains from the harmful ones, even if we disagree with the particular types of pain that Rousseau identified as educationally valuable. (shrink)

According to Rousseau, conscience and conscience alone can elevate human beings to a level above that of animals. It is conscience, understood as infallible judge of good and bad, which makes man like God. Conscience itself is, in this context, understood as divine, as an ‘immortal and celestial voice’. Therefore, if the voice of conscience is the same as the voice of God, then conscience is nothing human. However, although this interpretation is correct, there are some problems with it. If (...) we take into consideration the fact that conscience is in the same context defined first as a unifying principle which makes us like God, second as a thing which is in the middle between God and man and thirdly as a middle thing or mediation that integrates extremes organically, then conscience cannot be either simply human or divine. The second problem is the following: How can one who hears the voice of God know that he really hears his voice? And, if he is the only one who hears it, how can we know that he hears it? (shrink)

This article considers the ways in which a series of artworks by French artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze focus on the father’s ethical education of his male children, reading these as a close visualization of the pedagogical theories of Rousseau. Through paintings that contemplate family life, religious sentiment, filial piety, obedience versus disobedience, illness, and death, Greuze’s images of male youth coalesce with the ethics promoted in Rousseau’s novel Emile—stressing in particular the compassion and good conscience that a boy should develop (...) under the guidance of his father to become a man of virtue. In so doing, the artist responds to some of the key historic issues and social beliefs affecting male youth during his era: the necessity of apprenticed boys to leave home; an idealization of country living and farming as the best occupation for the adult male; and an overwhelming concern, widespread during this heightened period of warfare and unrest preceding the French Revolution, that young men go astray when they become soldiers. (shrink)

The trajectory from Rousseau through romanticism to twentieth-century efforts to preserve natural settings for their aesthetic values is a familiar one. What may be less familiar and more fruitful to explore at the present time is Rousseau’s stoic recognition of the need for limitation and balance in the ways that human beings interact with their surroundings. Rousseau’s discussion of the dynamics of natural need, artificial desires, and human powers or faculties appears in its most elaborated form in Emile, within (...) the context of the pedagogue’s role in fostering authentic happiness. Given our present preoccupation with competition, consumerism, and growth, Rousseau’s ethic of self-limitation and retrenchment is unlikely to be embraced by policy makers any time soon, but his alternative vision nevertheless merits contemporary recognition. (shrink)

In this essay Amy Shuffelton considers Jean-Jacques Rousseau's suspicion of imagination, which is, paradoxically, offered in the context of an imaginative construction of a child's upbringing. First, Shuffelton articulates Rousseau's reasons for opposing children's development of imagination and their engagement in the sort of imaginative play that is nowadays considered a hallmark of early and middle childhood. Second, she weighs the merits of Rousseau's opposition, which runs against the consensus of contemporary social science research on childhood imaginative (...) play. Ultimately, Shuffelton argues that Rousseau's work offers an important cautionary note to enthusiasts of children's imaginative play, due to the potentially disruptive influence of consumer capitalism, though she also notes that imagination may play a more redemptive role than Rousseau granted it. (shrink)

Pandemic disruptions to schooling threw into sharper relief the entanglements of economy, gender norms, and education that had been there, and throughout the modern world, all along. The particular entanglement this paper aims to unravel is the reliance of education on a certain kind of attentiveness, historically provided by a feminized teaching force and mothers, that itself rests on the cultivation of particular sensibilities regarding time.

In Emile, Rousseau advances significant ideas about language, language learning and teaching: He posits a universal natural language that develops as the child matures; focuses on ‘private’ words invented by children, on the challenge facing children in their understanding of exceptions to general rules of the mother tongue and on recommended methods of teaching the mother tongue. The paper explores these notions, which feature at the end of Book I of Emile. It seeks to explain and interpret them (...) as postulations regarding language, language learning and teaching and, moreover, to show how they relate to Rousseau's general principles of education. (shrink)

The Republican education, its concepts, theories, and form of discourse belong to the shared European heritage of the pre-modern Age. The pedagogy of humanism and its effects on the early Modern Age are represented by Republicanism. Even if Republicanism found a political continuation in liberalism and democratism of the Modern Age, the same cannot be said of pedagogic continuity without some reservations. In pedagogy of the Modern Age an alternative to Republicanism prevails that builds onto a body of concepts, discourse, (...) and theory; it goes back to an old theological tradition. Rousseau chooses this alternative exclusively for his concepts of education. He is neither the inventor nor the one who builds up this language in contrast to pedagogical Republicanism. Nonetheless, the pedagogical canonization of Rousseau as one of the co-founders of pedagogical Modernity, marks the specific development that this theological language of pedagogy undergoes at the turn of the nineteenth century. Originally it is closely linked to specific theological, dogmatic lines of thought, namely, to the respective Piety movements within the two Christian denominations of Western Europe. Yet at the turn of the nineteenth century, this theological language of pedagogy increasingly loses that exclusive link to this particular context and becomes thus freely available to any form of pedagogy, which puts at its centre the child’s soul, absolute inwardness, and introspection as both holy and also threatened by a basically decadent social environment and outward world. (shrink)

"In his pioneering treatise on education the great French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) presents concepts that had a significant influence on the development of pedagogy in the eighteenth century, and yet many of his ideas still sound radical today. Written in reaction to the stultifying system of rote learning and memorization prevalent throughout Europe at the time, Emile is a utopian vision of child-centered education, full of the sentiments of Romanticism, a movement that Rousseau inspired." "Imagining a typical boy (...) named Emile, Rousseau creates an ideal model of one-on-one tutelage from infancy to manhood with himself as the child's mentor. As in so many of his other famous works, here, too, Rousseau asserts his main thesis that human beings are by nature good; it is only the distorting influences of civilization that have corrupted them." "Educators as well as students of philosophy will find much to admire in Rousseau's still fresh and innovative ideas."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

For Rousseau, there are only three things he does not reason away apart from reason itself: self-interest, the good and, at least until Emile, pity. This paper argues that it is Rousseau’s original formulation of pity in the Second Discourse that is able to provide the extra-rational conception of ethics that his political and educational philosophy lacks when limited to a reading of the Social Contract and Emile. This paper will also show how the reconceptualisation of these existential (...) predicates is usefully aligned with a reading of Derrida’s conceptions of immunity and autoimmunity. By reconceiving Rousseau’s educational and political thinking in terms of the primacy of pity rather than reason, this paper will present a kind of philosophical prototype for beginning to rethink contemporary educational and political logic in terms of the primacy of pity more generally. (shrink)

SummaryAlthough Rousseau's treatment of his children has provoked much controversy, sustained and scholarly discussions are rare. This study is the first to present the evidence comprehensively and systematically. It engages each of Rousseau's contentions about his children in order to carefully discern the significance of this episode for his life and work. It offers an analytical table of each rationale—nineteen different ones, of five major types. It discusses documents of 1751 and 1778 which strongly defend the actions, the (...) ambiguous arguments in the Second Part of the Confessions, the oscillations in the period surrounding the Confessions, and finally the development of unqualified remorse in the middle period of Emile. It concludes by advancing a middle position between those who ultimately see his behaviour and associated excuses as demonstrating his unchecked individualism and subjectivism, and those who ultimately absolve this episode in order to find him a moralist in good standing. (shrink)

The idea of translating Gerdil into English is brilliant, the translation is very good and the introduction of William Frank precise and inspiring.... Rousseau proposes a complete break with tradition. A new man will arise who is severed from the whole heritage of the past. With him the history of mankind begins anew. In one sense we have here a transposition in the field of philosophy of education of the Cartesian cogito. The subject begins with himself. To this philosophical project (...) Gerdil opposes the idea of tradition. We have not made ourselves. Our parents have procreated us. The parents do not only procreate their offspring, they also introduce them into the natural and social reality, that is they educate. No education is possible without a lively dialogue with history and society. Since the beginning man stands in a close relationship to others, is made for the human society.... In these our times one form of modernity is collapsing and the mood of the day is an unclear postmodernity that in some of its versions could well be a return to barbarianism. All the more important is then that another form of modernity be rediscovered and brought to the attention of the American public. - Rocco Buttiglione, University of St. Pius V, Rome A timely translation of a compelling 18th century critique of Rousseau by the neglected Italian author, Hyacinth S. Gerdil. Gerdil's Anti-Emile may have been written as a critique of Rousseau's Emile, but it can equally be read as a critique of the philosophy embraced by the American educational establishment. Through the influence of John Dewey, Rousseau came to inform much of the educational theory regnant in the United States, with disastrous consequences, now acknowledge by nearly all. In a valuable preface to his translation, Professor Frank, drawing upon his experience both here and abroad, not only places Emile in context, but defends Gerdil's time-transcending, classical view of education against its modern detractors. "Gerdil," Frank tells us, "addressed his Anti-Emile to elders responsible for education, be they parents, teachers, or political authorities, who might find themselves swayed by the powerful rhetoric of Rousseau's Emile." The same may be said of this translation and its informative prefatory material, for it is clearly a study that will be valued by anyone interested in principled education. - Jude P. Dougherty, Catholic University of America Cover image: "Adam and Eve" by Tintoretto. St. Augustine's Press acknowledges the kind permission granted by la Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice, for the use of the image. All rights reserved by la Scuola Grande di San Rocco. (shrink)

The “Italian invert’s confessions” have long been known to historians of sexuality, yet this new edition lends them an authenticity never before enjoyed. The Prime Mover in the publication is Micha...

On his famous walk to Vincennes to visit the imprisoned Diderot, Rousseau had what he called an “illumination”—the realization that man was naturally good but becomes corrupted by the influence of society—a fundamental change in Rousseau’s perspective that would animate all of his subsequent works. At that moment, Rousseau “saw” something he had hitherto not seen, and he made it his mission to help his readers share that vision through an array of rhetorical and literary techniques. In Rousseau’s Reader, John (...) T. Scott looks at the different strategies Rousseau used to engage and persuade the readers of his major philosophical works, including the Social Contract, Discourse on Inequality, and Emile. Considering choice of genre; textual structure; frontispieces and illustrations; shifting authorial and narrative voice; addresses to readers that alternately invite and challenge; apostrophe, metaphor, and other literary devices; and, of course, paradox, Scott explores how the form of Rousseau’s writing relates to the content of his thought and vice versa. Through this skillful interplay of form and content, Rousseau engages in a profoundly transformative dialogue with his readers. While most political philosophers have focused, understandably, on Rousseau’s ideas, Scott shows convincingly that the way he conveyed them is also of vital importance, especially given Rousseau’s enduring interest in education. Giving readers the key to Rousseau’s style, Scott offers fresh and original insights into the relationship between the substance of his thought and his literary and rhetorical techniques, which enhance our understanding of Rousseau’s project and the audiences he intended to reach. (shrink)

It is often said that the claims of man and citizen are irreconcilable in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This view, most famously articulated by Judith Shklar, holds that the making of a man and the making of a citizen are to be understood as rival enterprises or competing alternatives. This reading has recently been challenged by Frederick Neuhouser. He argues that one can make a man and a citizen, but only if the education of each is performed in the (...) absence of the other. In his view, Emile is raised to be a man first before his subsequent instruction in citizenship. This paper challenges both views. I argue that the making of man and citizen are, in principle, neither rival enterprises nor competing alternatives, and that although Neuhouser is indeed correct to argue for a successive system of education, the making of a citizen is not completed in Emile, but extends into the Social Contract. His account diminishes the crucial role the Lawgiver plays in the fashioning of citizens capable of discerning the general will. I show that although raising individuals under a system of private instruction does not preclude their transformation into citizens but makes such a transformation possible, it is on its own incapable of making citizens. (shrink)

In Emile, Rousseau claims that the value of women ought to be determined by the opinion that men have of them. Women, contrary to commodities and men, escape what I call Rousseau's “dual theory of value.” According to the latter, the apparent value of commodities and men is determined by opinion and either unrelated or inverse to “real value,” which is assessed through objective criteria. The dual theory of value is the basis of Rousseau's critique of commercial (...) society. However, women warrant an exception to this theory. As women's apparent worth is their real worth, women are the unique object in the world that ought to be subjected to the rule of opinion, which is the rule of commercial market that Rousseau so violently rejects. This article investigates why this is the case and locates three functions to the unique position of women in Rousseau's theory of value. (shrink)

The aim of this contribution is to critically explore the understanding, the goals and the meaning of education in the philosophy of education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his educational novel Emile: or On Education [Emile ou De l’éducation] (1762) he depicts his account of the natural education. Rousseau argues that all humans share one and the same development process which is independent of their social background. He regards education as an active process of perfection which is curiosity-driven and (...) intrinsic to each child. Rousseau’s educational goals are autarky, happiness and freedom. (shrink)

John Locke's educational program has long been considered to have two primary aims: to habituate children to reason and to raise children capable of meeting the demands of citizenship that he details in his Two Treatises of Government. Yet Locke's educational prescriptions undermine citizens’ capacity for honesty, a critical political virtue for Locke. To explain how Locke's educational prescriptions are self-undermining, we turn to Rousseau's extended critique of Locke's Some Thoughts on Education in his Émile. We argue that Rousseau (...) explains why such an education allows a natural desire to dominate to flourish, rendering children who receive it dishonest and incapable of self-government. Rousseau's critique exposes how a liberal education focused solely on autonomy cannot produce the kinds of citizens a Lockean politics requires. (shrink)

L’article explore les différentes modalités du lien chez Rousseau, social, civil, politique, selon les principaux axes de sa pensée. On part de la critique de la sociabilité des Lumières conduite dans le Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes pour confronter le remède politique apporté dans le Contrat social à l’analyse qui est menée dans l’Émile autour de « l’homme abstrait » cultivant sa capacité d’attachement. Peut ainsi émerger la généalogie des liens à partir des relations (...) de besoin. En contrepoint de la condamnation de la dépendance réciproque, une cartographie des notions de liaison, rapport, relation, nœud et ressort permet de donner tout son sens à la définition positive de l’homme comme « être relatif ». (shrink)

s political theory apparently leads us to choose between patriotism and cosmopolitism. The two major works published in 1762, On the Social Contract and Emile , would represent the two sides of the alternative. However, the opposition between patriotism and cosmopolitism is the ultimate development of an internal tension between two aspects of Rousseau’s political concept of people: the intersubjectivity that permits the formation of the general will; and the individual’s devotion to the state. On the one hand, the (...) political community appears as a distributive totality. On the other hand, it is viewed as a collective totality. When generalized, intersubjectivity leads to the formation of both the social concept of people and the moral concept of humanity, while patriotism requires the individual’s loyalty to the nation. In order to maintain the coherence of the very political concept of people and to solve the main political problem - which is to reconcile security and liberty - it is necessary to overcome the dichotomy between cosmopolitism and patriotism. Emile and Rousseau’s original plan for On the Social Contract are consistent on that point. Key Words: cosmopolitism • general will • intersubjectivity • nation • patriotism • people. (shrink)

Rousseau, a philosopher of history? The suggestion may startle those who know him as an enemy of history, the founder of Counter-Enlightenment who rejected his century’s hope in progress and conjured quasi-utopias devoid of time. Alone, the political texts seem to justify this interpretation. Side by side with the Emile and Julie sagas, however, they disclose a new Rousseau, the weaver of a master plot that governs private and public history. This essay describes Jean-Jacques’ overarching narrative and the two (...) main subnarratives that compose it by juxtaposing his political and fictional works. In doing so, it contests current conventions about his ideas on women, challenges assumptions about his educational ideals, retrieves new aspects of his debt to Fénelon, and foregrounds the pivotal role that the idea of ‘true love’ plays in his philosophy as the foundation of political community. (shrink)

This essay offers a reading of Rousseau and Durkheim against the background of the current debate between those labeled liberals and those labeled communitarians. I show how the present false option of the debate (defend "the individual" or protect "the community") deflects our thought from a more promising direction that attempts to relate--not merely juxtapose--liberalism to communitarianism. Both Rousseau and Durkheim offer a middle way between liberalism and communitarianism, thereby rescuing us from the forced option. Durkheim's middle way, however, unlike (...) Rousseau's, fails to address the contingent yet seemingly irradicable tension between the private and public in liberal society. I conclude by championing Rousseau over Durkheim precisely because Rousseau is willing to entertain such friction. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDe l’esprit was read and commented on by Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire, in 1758. So was De l’homme when it appeared posthumously in 1773. We will go into this series of books, marginalia, and refutations, to address the question: what exactly was widely discussed between the three authors during the 1750s? Is it ‘materialism’? Our first point is to interpret the potential distortions, re-workings or re-appropriations in Rousseau’s marginalia, known as Notes sur De l’esprit, especially here about the so-called theory (...) of passive judgement. We will then see that there certainly is, in the discussion between Rousseau and Helvétius, a real opposition on the question of matter and its properties, as the examination of the Favre manuscript and the revised version of Émile would easily prove it. But this question is not the key to Rousseau’s first reaction to Helvétius's De l’esprit. I shall focus on the moral and anthropological dimensions of the discussion in the Notes. From this point of view, we wil... (shrink)

Rousseau's philosophy of education is contained not only in Emile , but also in The Government of Poland . In each of them he emphasises different aspects of education: How to be a human being? And: How to be a citizen? The main theme investigated by Rousseau in The Government of Poland, is how a minor nation surrounded by such major powers as Russia, Prussia and Austria can ensure its survival? Not having the option of defending itself against (...) its powerful neighbours by military means, Rousseau's advice is to found the Polish nation in the hearts of the Polish people, primarily through citizenship education. However, Poland was finally divided between its neighbours in 1795. Rousseau's writing The Government of Poland can shed some light on the Danish situation after losing the war to Prussia and Austria in 1864. With its defeat Denmark did not disappear, as did Poland, but the territory of the United Monarchy was almost halved by the loss of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. After the war some of the same defence strategies and educational ideas as Rousseau had recommended to Poland became important in Denmark. In light of Rousseau's ideas about citizenship education this article will explore the Danish way of trying to establish the nation in the hearts of the people throughout the 20th century. Today the question is: How to understand the conception of self‐determination in the context of establishing European political unity? In his analysis Habermas directs our attention to some of the same dilemmas that Rousseau had dealt with 200 years earlier. Habermas’ advice is to give the European spirit a republican form. (shrink)

Rousseau's philosophy of education is contained not only in Emile (1762), but also in The Government of Poland (1772). In each of them he emphasises different aspects of education: How to be a human being? And: How to be a citizen? The main theme investigated by Rousseau in The Government of Poland, is how a minor nation surrounded by such major powers as Russia, Prussia and Austria can ensure its survival? Not having the option of defending itself against (...) its powerful neighbours by military means, Rousseau's advice is to found the Polish nation in the hearts of the Polish people, primarily through citizenship education. However, Poland was finally divided between its neighbours in 1795. Rousseau's writing The Government of Poland can shed some light on the Danish situation after losing the war to Prussia and Austria in 1864. With its defeat Denmark did not disappear, as did Poland, but the territory of the United Monarchy was almost halved by the loss of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. After the war some of the same defence strategies and educational ideas as Rousseau had recommended to Poland became important in Denmark. In light of Rousseau's ideas about citizenship education this article will explore the Danish way of trying to establish the nation in the hearts of the people throughout the 20th century. Today the question is: How to understand the conception of self‐determination in the context of establishing European political unity? In his analysis Habermas directs our attention to some of the same dilemmas that Rousseau had dealt with 200 years earlier. Habermas’ advice is to give the European spirit a republican form. (shrink)

Cette contribution se propose d’étudier la manière dont Durkheim s’est réapproprié la philosophie de Rousseau. Le fondateur, après Auguste Comte, de la sociologie en France adopte une attitude ambivalente à l’égard de l’auteur du second Discours et du Contrat social : d’un côté, l’hommage rendu à celui qui a pensé la genèse empirique des rapports sociaux ; de l’autre, la critique de l’artificialisme du penseur du contrat. C’est entre ces deux limites qu’il faudra situer la réappropriation durkheimienne de Rousseau, qui (...) est une reconstruction et une réactualisation : la question de la genèse du sujet collectif est au cœur de leur dialogue posthume. Cette contribution reviendra donc sur l’interprétation durkheimienne du second Discours, ainsi que sur sa lecture du manuscrit de Genève. Il s’agira de montrer par quelle subtile distorsion du texte Durkheim parvient à imposer son exégèse de Rousseau et à en faire l’ancêtre de l’idée de « règne social », et de cerner comment la lecture durkheimienne du Contrat social procède à une réinterprétation originale de la théorie de la « volonté générale » dans des termes sociologiques. (shrink)

The paper focuses on Rousseau’s understanding of passionate life and especially his interpretation of erotic desire in Émile . The main argument presented is that Rousseau by his studies of erotic desire gives us at present day the possibility of radicalizing our understanding of human being in pedagogy. Firstly, by allowing us to rethink passions as important phenomena in human life and secondly, by understanding pedagogical practice as an arena which is part of forming passions, including erotic desire.