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3.02 AVERAGE
3.02 AVERAGE
details of his misogynistic approach do not interest me
read for class; old af, misogynist, racist, ableist, full of self-contradictions and just plain old incorrect (because we have science now), all within the first 100 pages. i guess what you would call “a product of its time”.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Blegh. Just Blegh. Not a fan of Rousseau. When it comes to 17th-18th century philosophers, it's all about John Locke. He is a much more concise and interesting author in my opinion. I blame Rousseau's Frenchness. Lol. Also, the children who were raised according to Rousseau's mandates for Emile turned out horribly. Go figure.
Rousseau was a unique Enlightenment philosopher in that he was of the artisan class within the Old Regime's Third Estate hierarchy. Most philosophers were of a much higher class like Voltaire. He also went against the grain by questioning whether knowledge and reason were pertinent--he thought reason could pervert thinking, it was the enemy of virtue. This was entirely against canonical Enlightenment ideas. He also argued education caused people to become more immoral which led to a life of luxury, selfishness and corruption. He stressed men should live in their "natural" world instead of the "artificial" world of the most educated and cultured societies. Rosseau greatly admired the Native Americans and thought they were the most natural and good.
Emile is both somewhat of a treatise and a novel and deals with a number of subjects, but the most talked about have to be education and women.
Rousseau said children were corrupted. He disapproved of children being raised solely by servants and this included swaddling, overprotection, breastfeeding, etc. Rousseau broke down the stages of human life into a few categories each with a different type of education. This was radical in the 17th century because children were mainly just taught memorization with no questions allowed and treated as adults in the classrooms.
Women will read the tail end of this book and think Rousseau was a sexist pig. He criticized women for not raising their children the way he describes. A fun fact is this philosopher, keen on treating children right and raising them to be good people, had four children of his own and put them all up for adoption. He also believed men were more physically strong and capable than women, a traditional view. Men only needed women because they desired them, meanwhile, women both needed and desired men to live. We castigate Islam culture today for treating women as subservient to men, but Rousseau and traditionalists of the religious type believed this to be the way of life as well. Despite some questionable views, Rousseau is not a believer that men were simply superior than women. He was more of a Cartesian feminist which was novel back then. As he grew older he espoused more traditional views however.
Overall, this was a pleasant read for my Enlightenment class. 3.5/5
Emile is both somewhat of a treatise and a novel and deals with a number of subjects, but the most talked about have to be education and women.
Rousseau said children were corrupted. He disapproved of children being raised solely by servants and this included swaddling, overprotection, breastfeeding, etc. Rousseau broke down the stages of human life into a few categories each with a different type of education. This was radical in the 17th century because children were mainly just taught memorization with no questions allowed and treated as adults in the classrooms.
Women will read the tail end of this book and think Rousseau was a sexist pig. He criticized women for not raising their children the way he describes. A fun fact is this philosopher, keen on treating children right and raising them to be good people, had four children of his own and put them all up for adoption. He also believed men were more physically strong and capable than women, a traditional view. Men only needed women because they desired them, meanwhile, women both needed and desired men to live. We castigate Islam culture today for treating women as subservient to men, but Rousseau and traditionalists of the religious type believed this to be the way of life as well. Despite some questionable views, Rousseau is not a believer that men were simply superior than women. He was more of a Cartesian feminist which was novel back then. As he grew older he espoused more traditional views however.
Overall, this was a pleasant read for my Enlightenment class. 3.5/5
La publication de l'Emile, en 1762, restitue au problème de l'éducation sa place centrale en philosophie. De ses premiers mois jusqu'à la rencontre amoureuse, Emile est suivi dans chaque étape, à travers des expériences qui attestent d'abord le souci de considérer « l'enfant dans l'enfant », au lieu de le sortir de son âge. Rousseau montre qu'il est possible d'éduquer un homme selon la nature et de quelle façon les vices et l'inégalité caractérisent désormais la condition humaine : double enjeu qui constitue sa « théorie de l'homme ».
There’s much that I agree with in the first four books, when Rousseau discusses the education of Emile, and much of what I disagree with is simply explained by the fact that Rousseau did not have the level of scientific understanding that we, more recent moderns, are privileged with. I agree with Rousseau’s views against swaddling, and for breastfeeding by the mother - because modern science validates these views; I agree that in childhood, education should not consist of reading books, but rather should be about playing, interactions with nature and with others; I agree that in learning manual skills as children, we should learn those we are inclined to learn, and not those that are too advanced or too rudimentary for us, nor those forced upon us by adults. And most especially, I agree that people should not be introduced to religion when they are children (though my reasoning here differs from Rousseau’s). While Rousseau thinks the reason children should not be introduced to religion early is because they are incapable of understanding abstractions, and thus are unable to genuinely believe in it, in my view the danger of religion is that the inability to comprehend abstraction actually results in adherence to dogma, belief without justification, which is incredibly difficult to let go off - I know this from personal experience.
The fifth book of Emile, where Rousseau speaks about the education of Sophie, Emile’s female companion, however, offends my modern feminist sensibilities - though it does give me a lot to think about. According to Rousseau, with the exception of our sex, men and women are basically the same in nature. But sex transforms nature so much, that women and men cannot, after that, be thought of to be the same - and thus should not be educated in the same ways.
Man’s advantage over woman, Rousseau argues, proceeds from the fact that he is stronger. Because he is stronger and can fend for himself (it was the eighteenth century, hey), man needs woman much less than she needs him - “Man is dependent on woman through his desires; woman is dependent on man through her desires and through her needs”.
Because of this, Rousseau thinks that a woman always ought to be passive - in opposition to man’s aggression; that her chief duty is to please man, and that only in this pleasing can she influence him. Woman's education must thus always be conducted with reference to man, but importantly, not be made to be like that of a man. She must be educated to be a good woman, not to be like a man, for the more she is like a man, the less she has influence over men; her femininity is her greatest prowess. It is also therefore not enough, Rousseau argues, that a woman’s conduct be good - her reputation must be sparkling also, for her attractiveness to man is hinged on this just as much as it is on her conduct - “'What will people think?’ is the grave of a man’s virtue and the throne of a woman’s”.
Yet through all of this, Rousseau does not see this system of education as subjugating to women. He does not think that following this system would mean that woman remains in ignorance, and becomes man’s servant, fit for nought more than housework and child bearing. Rather, he thinks that such a system is what allows women best “to think, to will, to love, to cultivate their minds as well as their persons” and to put “these weapons in their hands to make up for their lack of strength (relative to man) and to enable them to direct the strength of men”.
There’s a lot that’s disagreeable here for most of us moderns, as I said before. But it is helpful to remember that our ideas about the relationship between, and the education of, the sexes are pretty contingent. As late as 2005, when I went to primary school in Kenya, there was a course called “Home Science” - which taught practical skills such as sewing, housekeeping, cooking etc., and which was predominantly meant for, and attended by, female students. And even till today, in many places in the west, childcare is predominantly a task left for women (though thankfully these attitudes are changing). I think that thinking about contingent social attitudes and mores using a wrong/right or good/bad paradigm, as many of us often do, is unhelpful - it merely imposes the chauvinism of our times and our contingent social norms onto earlier periods, and assumes a moral essentialism which I refuse to buy into it. I think it is enough to say that Rousseau’s system does not work for us - “us” being modern people influenced by feminist ideals.
The fifth book of Emile, where Rousseau speaks about the education of Sophie, Emile’s female companion, however, offends my modern feminist sensibilities - though it does give me a lot to think about. According to Rousseau, with the exception of our sex, men and women are basically the same in nature. But sex transforms nature so much, that women and men cannot, after that, be thought of to be the same - and thus should not be educated in the same ways.
Man’s advantage over woman, Rousseau argues, proceeds from the fact that he is stronger. Because he is stronger and can fend for himself (it was the eighteenth century, hey), man needs woman much less than she needs him - “Man is dependent on woman through his desires; woman is dependent on man through her desires and through her needs”.
Because of this, Rousseau thinks that a woman always ought to be passive - in opposition to man’s aggression; that her chief duty is to please man, and that only in this pleasing can she influence him. Woman's education must thus always be conducted with reference to man, but importantly, not be made to be like that of a man. She must be educated to be a good woman, not to be like a man, for the more she is like a man, the less she has influence over men; her femininity is her greatest prowess. It is also therefore not enough, Rousseau argues, that a woman’s conduct be good - her reputation must be sparkling also, for her attractiveness to man is hinged on this just as much as it is on her conduct - “'What will people think?’ is the grave of a man’s virtue and the throne of a woman’s”.
Yet through all of this, Rousseau does not see this system of education as subjugating to women. He does not think that following this system would mean that woman remains in ignorance, and becomes man’s servant, fit for nought more than housework and child bearing. Rather, he thinks that such a system is what allows women best “to think, to will, to love, to cultivate their minds as well as their persons” and to put “these weapons in their hands to make up for their lack of strength (relative to man) and to enable them to direct the strength of men”.
There’s a lot that’s disagreeable here for most of us moderns, as I said before. But it is helpful to remember that our ideas about the relationship between, and the education of, the sexes are pretty contingent. As late as 2005, when I went to primary school in Kenya, there was a course called “Home Science” - which taught practical skills such as sewing, housekeeping, cooking etc., and which was predominantly meant for, and attended by, female students. And even till today, in many places in the west, childcare is predominantly a task left for women (though thankfully these attitudes are changing). I think that thinking about contingent social attitudes and mores using a wrong/right or good/bad paradigm, as many of us often do, is unhelpful - it merely imposes the chauvinism of our times and our contingent social norms onto earlier periods, and assumes a moral essentialism which I refuse to buy into it. I think it is enough to say that Rousseau’s system does not work for us - “us” being modern people influenced by feminist ideals.
Al leer Émile, debes tener en cuenta el contexto histórico de la obra. Rousseau fue en su momento uno de los intelectuales de pensamiento más avanzado, aunque hoy —sobre todo el capítulo cinco— choque enormemente con nuestro pensamiento moderno. Aun así, es muy difícil pensar en la utilidad de un método Rousseau en la educación.