Education and philosophy as natural man’s artifices

Abstract

It will be in Emile that Rousseau will present the causes of denaturation in all human life. Born without fully developed faculties, man acquires from an early age, in the relationship with their fellows, all the passions and vices of life in society. How to avoid this degeneration of man and form, then, the man of nature, "involved in the social whirlwind"? This is the challenge Rousseau poses in his treatise. "There are so many contradictions between the rights of nature and our social laws that, to reconcile them, it is necessary to deform and distort without ceasing, it is necessary to use a lot of art to prevent the social man from being totally artificial". Thus, education and philosophy are decisive for the formation of Emile. For it is necessary that he "think like a philosopher" which means to have his well-built judgment, necessary for social life, not to be led by opinions and to "silence" his own passions. Only in this way, in the present state of things, will Emile be a natural man, guided by his own judgment in observing men's errors. For "the same man who must remain stupid in the forests must become reasonable and sensible in the cities if he remains a mere spectator".