Rousseau on Education, Freedom, and Judgment

1. Judgment and the Standard of Nature

It is not philosophers who know men best. They see them only through the prejudices of philosophy , and I know of no station where one has so many. A savage has a healthier judgment of us than a philosopher does. (E, 243; 4:535) Whatever else good judgment means for Rousseau, it is certainly grounded in his understanding of nature, which provides a standard against which civil society is to be judged. To what degree, and in what sense (i.e., whether substantively or as a formal standard of wholeness), nature remains relevant to human beings living in society is the subject of much scholarly debate; but Rousseau is unequivocal on the point that a poor or deformed understanding of nature leads to unsound judgment of the human condition. Thus in his preface to the Second Discourse he claims that a correct understanding of the original state of nature (which “no longer exists, which perhaps never existed, which probably never will exist”) is necessary “in order to judge our present state correctly” (SD, 93; 3:123). In Emile, Rousseau frequently holds up his pupil, the product of an education according to nature, as an example against which the misery of civil society can be judged. It is arguable that the understanding of nature developed in Emile is even more relevant to civilized human beings, because while the savage state depicted in the Second Discourse is irretrievably lost to us, Emile is educated to 1 judgment and the standard of nature I Judgment and the Standard of Nature M 17 live not in a savage state but in society. Rather than strictly oppose the state of nature and existence in society, Rousseau goes so far as to refer to what is “natural in the civil state” (E, 406; 4:764). This suggests the possibility of a secondorder naturalness that might serve as an even more useful guide to our judgments of our present state than the account of the original natural state in the Second Discourse. As a touchstone for guiding judgment, however, “nature” turns out to be a very slippery concept in Emile. Rousseau suggests that there is a natural order and direction to human development, and that a sound education follows the path that nature lays out for us. Insofar as Emile’s education is to follow that path, its goal “is the very same as that of nature” (38; 4:247). Rousseau then adds, “But perhaps this word nature has too vague a sense,” concluding that “an attempt must be made to settle on its meaning” (39; 4:247). One might understand his “attempt” to settle its meaning as consisting of the substance of the next two paragraphs, which culminate in the definition that nature is whatever human inclinations are before “they are more or less corrupted by our opinions.” Again, this formulation is deceptively simple. What would it mean to relate everything to our “original” dispositions, if we are born in such an undeveloped state? We are not born independent and self-sufficient. “We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment” (38; 4:247). To appeal to natural man as the ideal to which we must orient all education thus begs the question of how one develops into a natural man.1 It seems odd to make such a leap in a book that devotes so much attention to the earliest stages of childhood. The human infant can hardly be the guide for us; it is thus not surprising that Rousseau follows his statement that everything must be related to these original dispositions with a description of natural man (contrasted with both the citizen and the bourgeois). This points us to the Second Discourse, where Rousseau takes as his starting point an image of natural man fully formed (and only subsequently addresses the question of reproduction and the status of children). Perhaps it is there that Rousseau shows us man’s “original” form; but even in that work, Rousseau makes it difficult to discern when his natural man is fully formed, inasmuch as perfectibility is presented as part of man’s original nature.2 In Emile, this doubleness is reflected not only in the contrast between the early and later (negative and positive) phases of Emile’s education but in the very idea of an “original” nature as presented in the earliest stages of Rousseau’s educational project. That is, even as Rousseau...