Rousseau on Education, Freedom, and Judgment

Denise Schaeffer

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780271062099
• eBook ISBN:
  9780271064468
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: French Literary Criticism

In Rousseau on Education, Freedom, and Judgment, Denise Schaeffer challenges the common view of Rousseau as primarily concerned with conditioning citizens' passions in order to promote republican virtue and unreflective patriotism. Schaeffer argues that, to the contrary, Rousseau's central concern is the problem of judgment and how to foster it on both the individual and political level in order to create the conditions for genuine self-rule. Offering a detailed commentary on Rousseau's major work on education, Emile, and a wide-ranging analysis of the relationship between Emile and several of Rousseau's other works, Schaeffer explores Rousseau's understanding of what good judgment is, how it is learned, and why it is central to the achievement and preservation of human freedom. The model of Rousseauian citizenship that emerges from Schaeffer's analysis is more dynamic and self-critical than is often recognized. This book demonstrates the importance of Rousseau's contribution to our understanding of the faculty of judgment, and, more broadly, invites a critical reevaluation of Rousseau's understanding of education, citizenship, and both individual and collective freedom.

Table of contents

• COVER Front
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abreviations of Rousseau’s Works
• Introduction
• Notes to Introduction
• Chapter 1: Judgment and the Standard of Nature
• Notes to Chapter 1
• Chapter 2: Learning to Move: The Body, the Senses, and the Foundations of Judgment
• Notes to Chapter 2
• Chapter 3: Books and Experience in the Education of Judgment
• Notes to Chapter 3
• Chapter 4: Judgment and Pity
• Notes to Chapter 4
• Chapter 5: Piety and Authority
• Notes to Chapter 5
• Chapter 6: Judgment, Love, and Illusion
• Notes to Chapter 6
• Chapter 7: Judgment and the Possibility of Partial Detachment
• Notes to Chapter 7
• Chapter 8: Judgment and Citizenship
• Notes to Chapter 8
• Notes
• Index
• COVER Back