Rousseau on learning: A re-evaluation

Educational Theory

Volumn 46, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 415-428

  Winch, Christopher ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTHAMPTON   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247680273     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.1996.00415.x     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. For a relatively benign overview of Emile from the point of view of a traditional liberal educator.
2. R.S. Peters, "The Paradoxes in Rousseau's Emile" in R.S. Peters, Essays on Educators (London: Allen and Unwin, 1981).
3. For a recent account of the influence of Rousseau on other progressive educational thinkers.
4. John Darling, Child-Centred Education and its Critics (London: Chapman, 1994), chap. 2 and 3. All quotations from Emile are taken from J.J. Rousseau, Emile ou I'education, first published in 1762.
5. For convenience, citations and quotations are taken from the English translation by Barbara Foxley (London: Dent, 1911)
6. This work will be referred to as Emile with page numbers in the rext for all subsequent citations.
7. N.J. Dent, "The Basic Principle of Emile's Education," Journal of Philosophy of Education 22, no. 2 (1958a): 139-50.
8. John Darling, "Rousseau as Progressive Instrumentalist," Journal of Philosophy of Education 27, no. 1 (1993): 27-38
9. Rousseau does not appear to subscribe to a systematic doctrine of innate ideas. But he does appear to believe that the sentiment of justice is innate. He also appears to believe that certain capacities are innate, although manifested within a social context.
10. Rousseaudoes, of course, see the need for some kind of normative order, but only one that is based upon the free association of cquals. But the question posed here is, "What are the conditions that would allow the free associaition of individuals to srisel" and answering that question presupposes the prior existence of a normiitive order.
11. For more on this, see John Darling, "Understanding and Religion in Rousseau's Emile," British Journal of Educational Studies 33, no. 1 (1985): 20-34.
12. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book II, chap. 1, p. 78. (1690; reprint, London: Dent, 1961).
13. See for example, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Philosophical Psychology, vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980)Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality (London: Dent, 1913), 174-79.
14. Dent makes out a powerful case for inclining to this view, NJ. Dent, Rousseau (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988). The interpretation of "natural" in this section owes a great deal to Dent's discussion.
15. Contrast Wittgenstein's remark, "Anyone who listens to a child's crying and understands what he hears will know that it harbours dormant psychic forces, terrible forces different from anything commonly assumed. Profound rage, pain and lust for destruction," in Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch (Oxford: Blackweii, 1980), 2e.
16. Here Rousseau appears also to sanction the existence of an innate sense of justice in humans.
17. G.P. Baker, P.M.S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 45-47.
18. It has quite correctly been pointed out that the tutor aims for total control over his pupil, but this control is concealed and manipulative, relying for its effect on Em He's lack of awareness of how he is learning.
19. Eliahu Rosenow, "Rousseau's Emile an Anti-utopia,""Rousseau's Emile an Anti-utopia," British Journal of Educational Studies XXVIII, no. 3 (1980): 212-24.
20. Both Rosenow, "Rousseau's Emile," and Peters, Paradoxes in Rousseau's Emile, and are, however, wrong in thinking that this control constitutes authority; it is, rather, the covert employment of superior power.
21. In describing what Rousseau means by these terms, I am greatly indebted to the account developed in Dent, Rousseau.
22. Simone Weil, L'lliade. Poeme de Force, cited in Peter Winch, Simone Weil: The fust Balance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 105-6
23. See P.P. Strawson, "Freedom and Resentment" in Freedom and Resentment and other Essays (London: Methuen, 1974).
24. See Rosenow, "Rousseau's Emile" and Christopher Winch, "Education Needs Training," Oxford Review of Education 21, no. 3 (1995): 315-26 for a fuller account of how this works in Emile.
25. See Kathy Sylva and Ingrid Lunt, Child Development (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982) for some examples.
26. For a fuller account of Rousseau on religious education.
27. Darling, "Understanding and Religion."
28. For the elements of such an account.
29. Peter Geach, Mental Acts (London: Rout ledge, 1957).