Philosophy of Education
Essay question:
What errors did Rousseau’s account of educational non-interference intend to avoid? If his pedagogy were implemented in the real world, would it be more likely to produce a well-adjusted and natural being, as he expected, or a maladjusted monster?
2000 words
Do not include Abstract, Introduction and Conclusion
The question has two parts:
1. What do you need to know about to answer the first part?
Discuss
• Amour-de-soi vs Amour Propre
• Primitive vs Civilised
• Negative education, 2-12
• (preserve from vice and error), teacher’s non-presence
• Two forms of excess
• Preserving childhood, rather than forcing adulthood
• Learning through things, not through people
2. What do you need to think about to answer the second part?
Challenge
• Child-centred learning methods require deception
• Is human nature originally so perfect it requires no socialisation?
please use as many reading as you can from the list below
Main reading
Rousseau, J.J. Emile, or On Education, Chapters I-III (various editions, though the Penguin edition, translated with an introduction by A. Bloom, is especially recommended, because the Introduction is valuable reading).
Core readings
Charvet, J. The Social Problem in the Philosophy of Rousseau, Cambridge: CUP, 1974, Chapters 2-3.
Dent, N.J.H. Rousseau: An Introduction to his Psychological, Social and Political Theory, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988, Chapters 2-4.
‘The Basic Principle of Emile’s Education’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 22.2, 1988, pp.139-149
Jonas, M.E. ‘When Teachers Must Let Education Hurt: Rousseau and Nietzsche on Compassion and the Educational Value of Suffering’, Journal of Philosophy of Education 44:1, 2010, pp.45-60.
Mintz, A.I. ‘The Happy and Suffering Student? Rousseau’s Emile and the Path Not Taken in Progressive Educational Thought’, Educational Theory 62:3, 2012
O’Hagan, T. ‘Jean-Jacques Rousseau’ in Fifty Thinkers on Education: From Confucius to Dewey, edited by J.A. Palmer, London & New York: Routledge, 2001.
Perkinson, H.J. Since Socrates: Studies in the History of Western Educational Thought, New York: Longman, 1980, Chapter 8.
Shuffleton, A.B. ‘Rousseau’s Imaginary Friend: Childhood, Play, and the Suspicion of the Imagination in Emile’, Educational Theory 62:3, 2012
Winch, C. ‘Rousseau on Learning: A Re-evaluation’, Educational Theory 46:4, 1996.
Wright, E.H. The Meaning of Rousseau, New York: Russell & Russell, 1929, Chapter II.
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