Will not be a terribly good review, I don't have much time.

Rousseau is an interesting thinker, most known for the Social Contract and the Second Discourse; most see him as a political thinker who influenced the later French Revolution. I didn't really care about him too much until I saw a peculiar biographical fact. Kant was well known for going on a walk at the same time every day, so accurately that people would wind their watches according to it, if you believe that. Slightly less well known is that Kant only once in his life* deviated from this schedule, for a few days, when he came across Emile. And if Kant can give such a recommendation, considering Kant.... it's probably a good recommendation. In Dieter Henrich's fourth lecture from the series Between Kant and Hegel, "Freedom as the Keystone to the Vault of Reason," he gives a lovely account of the massive influence of Rousseau on Kant. One way of looking at the critical project, and to be honest, still the way I usually look at it when I'm forced to ascribe something to it, is to say Kant "rescues" knowledge of the external world from idealists and skeptics like Berkeley and Hume; but what is also a great way to look at it, is to look at it as a "rescue" of the notion of freedom from materialism and dogmatism, in the way of Spinoza or Helvetius. Henrich is single-handedly responsible for the revival of scholarly interest in the English world for the period "Between Kant and Hegel," which is a lovely work to read.

There are two remarkable aspects of the book, or rather while the whole is remarkable, two aspects represent that well. The first is his dislike and distaste for the Enlightenment. What? dislike and distaste of it from one of its greatest figures? His First Discourse goes into this as well, but Rousseau does think that much of the education given by society is not done well, will not make one strong, healthy, or happy, and that the Enlightenment has degraded morals. Thus Emile, the fictional child who the novel follows through his upbringing, is brought up for most of his life within the country, with little influence from modernism, and essentially develops the spirit of inquiry from the natural curiosity of children, rather than from a more stultified classroom which tells him what to learn and when. He is taught, or rather is craftily placed by his tutor in such situations that he teaches himself, the value of labor, property, empathy, morality, etc. etc.. In many places it's not wrong. I haven't read the other important pedagogical work of this period, Locke's "Some Thoughts Concerning Education," so I don't quite know how it compares, but I can assume it was forward-thinking for the time.

The other aspect is the infamous "Confession of a Savoyard Vicar," which is in the mouth of a priest explaining his thoughts on religion, a 40-page or so account of Rousseau's. It went straight to the Index because of this, as one can expect. But "atheism" being a wide and loose word in the enlightenment, extending to all manner of characters, it is not enough to say that Rousseau was simply opposed to traditional Christianity. Compared to his French peers, Diderot, D'Alembert, and Voltaire were more in the atheist direction than him. It's not really a view that can get a proper explanation outside of the context of the Enlightenment discourse on religion, or outside of a more specific comparison to other thinkers of the time. But if you read it, you will see how it is a little scandalous (for the time) that Kant developed his practical philosophy out of it, but also how evident the influence is in e.g. God fulfilling a "regulative" function within Kantian philosophy.

Sue me, but I glazed through long sections where Rousseau talks about Sophy, Emile's eventual wife, and about the education of women. It didn't interest me.

Émile; ou, De l'éducation

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Émile (1957)

Émile (1957)

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