Much of Emile is dedicated to the raising of a young man but the last section is devoted to the education of girls. The culmination of these two statements on learning is the marriage of Emile and Sophie, a girl who was raised according to Rousseau’s model of rearing for young women. While this is still technically fiction, the style and tone is didactic and the narrator often slips off into long diatribes about his own past as well his feelings about society, religion, and moral matters. Emile by Jean Jacques Rousseau is conveniently broken up into 5 sections of narrative and essays, each of which deals with either a particular age group or time in a young person’s life. The first section of essays deals with the child’s development until about the age of twelve when he is still living very much like an animal and needs to have his natural tendency toward understanding brought forth.

The second section addresses the development of a young person from the ages of twelve to fifteen, which is a time when reason begins to take hold and the child, especially with a proper apprenticeship, begins to take his first steps toward manhood. The last section of essays in Emile discusses development and addresses the ages of fifteen and up when the young child grows into a man and must learn to make his own way based on the careful instruction he has been given. It is also at this late point that he should find a woman who completes him, which is illustrated by the example of Sophie.

There are various modern interpretations that can be gleaned from Rousseau’s treatise on education in Emile and just as many that are based upon historical knowledge of the period during which he wrote the book. In general, it seems most appropriate to draw an understanding off of both schools of interpretation to form a cohesive idea about what the text meant then and how elements of it can be very pertinent to educational theory today. One of the most important issues Rousseau raises in Emile in more than one essay and point, is the proper setting for the education of a child. Rousseau contends that living in cities is bad for children and will indoctrinate them far too early to all of the vices and pretensions that are common in urban areas.

To him, the best way for a child to begin to develop in a healthy manner is to live in a “state of nature” far from the corrupting influences of society. As Rousseau states in one of the important quotes from Emile, “Nature wants children to be children before being men. If we want to pervert this order, we shall produce pernicious fruits which will be immature and insipid and will not be long in rotting….Childhood has its ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling which are proper to it” (90). This thesis statement from Emile is interesting on a number of levels because it views children themselves as something completely natural and uncorrupted. They are considered “fruits” and just as real fruits cannot always thrive in a city, blocked off from the fresh air and too jam-packed to allow the roots to spread, the same is true with children. Instead of allowing these foul influences to ruin the quality of the “harvest” it is best to raise them in full sun, open to the elements.

To Rousseau in Emile , children are like animals at a young age and must be allowed to explore, unhindered by the burdens of formal education and strict weighty moral instruction. Although this was written at a time in which the urban areas were the center of a very quickly changing society, full of strict social and moral codes, one cannot help but think this may in some ways be a pertinent method of child-rearing today as well. Instead of confining children in big cities and tiny classrooms, perhaps Rousseau is right that it is best to give them the freedom and the breathing room to grow and breathe in a state of nature rather than a state of indomitable structure.

It is interesting to think about the way Rousseau incorporates the idea of reason into his theories on raising a child properly in “Emile”. It is expected, because of the issues surrounding human reason during Rousseau’s time that the subject would make an appearance, but in the case of this text, it is a foundation for many of his ideas. Throughout Emile, Rousseau has something of a love-hate relationship with the concept of reason as it is applied toward the raising of children. At one point he scoffs at the notion of raising a child based on principles of reason when he says in one of the important quotations from “Emile” by Rousseau, “The masterpiece of a good education is to make a reasonable man, and they claim they raise a child by reason! This is to begin with the end, to want to make the product the instrument” (89). He understands that eventually reason will be an all-consuming part of the young person’s life but he also believes that there is a time for it to be important a time when it is just damaging and even a hindrance to the proper rearing of a young man. As he suggests, “Each age, each condition of life, has its suitable perfection, a sort of maturity proper to it” (158) and in Rousseau’s mind, maturity is a sign of readiness for reason. Trying to push it upon a child before he is ready is not only foolish but potentially damaging. Again, while this was certainly a valid point to make during Rousseau’s time (when questions about reason were at their height) it is still quite important to consider in modern times. What Rousseau is suggesting is that we allow children to be children before maturity and its associated learning and responsibilities takes away the possibility to just purely question and explore. This idea is applied in many households and schools these days as parents and educators attempt to create a balance between structured learning and playtime to increase the child’s capacity for creativity and natural inquisitiveness.

Connected with the ideas about reason Rousseau posits is his potent statement that, as explained in this quotation from “Emile”, “One of the errors of our age is to use reason in too unadorned a form, as if men were all mind. In neglecting the language of signs that speak to the imagination, the most energetic of languages has been lost” (321). At this point he almost directly addresses the issue of creativity that is still important in the education system today. He sees the problem of introducing children too early to the heavy topics of morality, religion, and society that are more likely to stifle the natural inclination to question the world—an inclination that is more important than nearly any other as far as Rousseau is concerned. Although it is certainly very controversial in modern times, for these reasons Rousseau did not believe in teaching children to read until relatively late because it would help them avoid the same corrupting influences he saw in cities. In my future career as a teacher, I would like to consider (although not completely put into real practice) his ideas about “negative education” so that my emphasis is just as much on the beauty and openness of youth and the processes by which it develops as the more practical and mandated curricular requirements of education.

By the end of the text, Rousseau is clearly proud of his fictional creation of the perfect man of theEnlightenment age and makes it clear to the reader that even though Emile is grown and married, the process of learning never ends. After his education and marriage to Sophie, Emile begs of his teacher to, “Advise us and govern us….We shall be docile. As long as I live I shall need you. I need you more than ever now that my functions as a man begin” (480). This statement by Emile makes it clear that Rousseau believes in both the idea that education is an ongoing endeavor and also that having a mentor or a teacher is something that should be important to all men. Just as the process of learning and understanding the world never ends, the same is true of the process and art of teaching. It is not a task that is ever quite complete as the pupil will be ever-changing to suit and adapt to the world around him. Although there were a number of aspects that stood out to me throughout my experience with this text, this statement by Emile about having a connection with his teacher and never growing out of his need for him made an impact. As a future teacher, I want my students to feel the same way as Emile did about his mentor. I want them to realize that even though their period of education with me may end on a structured academic level, I will always be there to assist with the other learning tasks life presents. Although I will admit that the case of Emile is idealistic and in many ways rather dated the philosophy behind the fictitious sentiments and philosophy still rings true, inspires, and speaks volumes about the power of both education and educator.

This text has been invaluable in my development as a teacher; not necessarily because it offers a host of practical advice about what I can do (since so much of it is dated and almost impossible in today’s world) but because it makes me understand a lot about the philosophy behind education. Without having a broad range of thoughts and ideas about how children and young adults develop, it is easy to get locked into a rigid and inflexible system that ignores the importance of creativity and freedom. After reading this text I feel as though I am better equipped to understand development in young people and will be more open to more natural instructional techniques that allow learning as a result of direct experience and interaction rather than strict codes of formal teaching. Although I do feel as though Rousseau was being very idealistic and that this was set in a very utopian range of understanding and practice, it is not so much that which matters but rather that a deeper understanding of different modes of teaching has become available to me.

Other essays and articles in the Main Archives related to this topic include :  Summary and Analysis of Thinking in Education by Matthew Lipman  •   Common Themes in Romanticism, The Enlightenment, and the Renaissance     •    Representations of Children in Eighteenth Century Literature   •  Candide by Voltaire: In the Context of the Enlightenment    •   In Defense of the Traditional Classroom : An Argument Against The Move to Online Classes

Although this essay seeks to explore the themes and meaning behind the building metaphor in Discourse on Method by Descartes, it is necessary to understand the background of both Descartes and “Discourse on Method”. Before beginning a more specific analysis the main research questions and a hypothesis about the building metaphor, it is necessary to preface this by first detailing what Descartes was trying to relate overall in “Discourse on Method”. Aside from the important building metaphor that will be discussed shortly, this work more generally a summary that “contains the formal beginning of philosophy (and a new beginning in the histories of philosophy) in the sense that it inaugurates a process of intuition and deduction that has, at least in principle, the power to generate a system of universal knowledge” (Bruns 146). While the building metaphor is paramount in this system of “universal knowledge” the book itself describes the process of arriving at such a system.

Rene Descartes was a French philosopher associated with the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth and  centuries and is often cited as both the Father of Philosophy as well as the Father of Modern Mathematics. Descartes pursued a number of scholarly interests including metaphysics, general philosophy, science, and mathematics and produced a large body of works in all of these areas. In terms of mathematics, he is best remembered as the founder of analytic geometry which later led to calculus. His broad understandings of the natural world and sciences have influenced modern thought and are discussed at length in one of his first books, “Meditations on First Philosophy” and detail his belief in the idea of methodological skepticism: the concept that any hypothesis can be called into question in order to gain a firmer understanding of the matter at hand. This was later developed into the famous axiom, “I think, therefore I am.” This book also prefaced his beliefs on the very process of learning and thinking and is an important key to understanding Discourse on Method. Most importantly, this book discusses Descartes’ “central claim in the Meditations [that he] discovered thinking—specifically in the self-certifying performance of ego cogito, ego sum—a first principle of knowledge and an original foundation for knowing and living” (DeWarren 150).  Aside from his pursuit of discovering the meaning and processes of knowledge and learning, Descartes had a wide variety of interests and developed several important new ways of thinking that added fuel to the Scientific Revolution. While it would be impossible to cover all or even part of his general philosophy, examining his use of the “building metaphor” detailed in Discourse on Method is one of the best ways to gain a cursory understanding of his philosophical views.

Discourse on Method  from which the building metaphor is but a part of, begins with a more personal story about how he came to appreciate the value of education and the process by which he formed the basis for what he later discusses. As a figure in the Scientific Revolution, Descartes relates his disgust through this essay with his educational background since he, like many other academics of the day, was schooled by the clergy—in his case the Jesuits. What he found most distressing about this early educational experience was that there was no room for doubt or questioning where he saw the need for serious inquiry. This part of the essay by Descartes then describes how he then left school to travel about and learn as much as he could about the world and other cultures. This finally leads him to an epiphany which takes place one evening in the quiet of his bedroom. At this magical moment Descartes suddenly works up the nerve to call everything he’s ever taken for the truth into question and to start again from scratch with an open and questioning mind. Strangely, it was through this process that his mind moved beyond more ethereal matters of morality and religion into the realm of mathematics. This process produced Descartes’ concept for analytic geometry and allowed him to move past that into philosophy.

To summarize, after this point in his life, Descartes develops the maxim recalled above, “I think, therefore I am.” Using this as his guiding principle he then discusses that knowledge itself is something that is more perception that something that has been learned. In other words, at times reason must be put aside and we must recognize that we know something because there is no way of doubting it. This leads him to declare that the mind and soul are two different things and they operate apart from his body. This even further allows him to make two arguments that prove God exists based solely on this viewpoint. It should be noted, however, that even though he, quite unlike his contemporary, Galileo, was still working somewhat within the traditions of the Church, even though he was founding several important ideas that would later work against its authority. He made certain that many of his works would not go too overtly against Church teachings and saved many of his more “salacious” texts and ideas for publication late in his life. It is clear, especially from a more modern viewpoint that several of his ideas, particularly as they appear in Discourse on Method, would have been considered inflammatory by the Church but this text was not published in time for him to be punished during the Inquisition as Galileo was. In essence, what Descartes was establishing was a way for people to learn to call into question the basis of their belief system and all that they had hitherto considered to be the ultimate truth. In his use of the building metaphor, Descartes is quietly urging on the goal of the Scientific Revolution—to make his contemporaries use their knowledge and ability to question rather than simply their learning based on traditions.

After discussing the foundations of his beliefs on a number of academic enterprises in the first section of Discourse on Method, Descartes begins constructing the building metaphor by stating, “there is seldom so much perfection in works composed of many separate parts, upon which different hands had been employed, as in those completed by a single master” (6). By stating this, he is implying that having education from a number of sources is not the true path to truth and rational thought and he compares such a system of education and thinking as a building which is constructed on old foundations and not serving the purposes it was initially made for. He broadens his metaphor even further by moving outside of one building to an entire city, stating, “ancient cities which, from being at first only villages, have become, in course of time, large towns, are usually but ill laid out compared with the regularity constructed towns which a professional architect has freely planned on an open plain” (7). To Descartes, there is no sense in having too many influences on a work, be it of an academic, spiritual, or physical construction, if it is not designed and thought out by one person with one cogent idea. Even though he has been to “the best school in Europe” there were far too many influences shaping his understanding and therefore, in order to progress and build a solid construction of his own, he (and the reader) must tear down these shoddy constructs and begin anew on a new foundation, with new materials, and with a firm plan.

As the building metaphor progresses, Descartes states that he continued in his studies he began to understand that, the ground of our opinions is far more custom and example than any certain knowledge” (9) and in this case, given the metaphor that has been built, the “ground” he speaks of is literally the very land, the base on which we are to build the foundations and later, the structure of thought and opinion. In some senses, it almost seems that he is suggesting that the e very ground itself is tainted and even with the most skilled “architect” on must dig through this ground, leveling it out in order to create a perfect building surface. He also realizes that even the foundations that were left on this ground were corrupt and must be deconstructed before one could build a method. Descartes states, “I firmly believed that in this way I should much better succeed in the conduct of my life, than if I built only upon old foundations, and leaned upon principles which, in my youth, I had taken upon trust” (9). It is only through the systematic deconstruction of all the old constructs of existence and learning that one will be able to learn the truth.

Another important element of the building metaphor that is only briefly mentioned is that this is not a process of building that will happen overnight. Descartes stresses how, “it is likewise necessary that we be furnished with some other house in which we may live commodiously during the operations” (14). He understands that there is a great deal of work that must be given not only to rebuilding but the deconstruction effort and insists that this “other house” must be a place where morality exists. If there is nothing else for Descartes, there is morality and although in itself it is not a strong material to erect a building with, it is where some of the strength for the task lies. With morality, the reader can gain the “ground” upon which to stand and can come to clearly see the functioning of the universe as a machine or a construct. To further emphasize this point, for Descartes, all things in the natural world can be reduced to a series of logical elements, they are all machines, all are part of large natural mechanisms and even his discussion about animals, plants, and the natural world has an element of mechanical. His description of the heart is filled with the idea of construction, of a series of parts working together to form the whole and create something functional and perfect.  In sum, for Descartes, the building metaphor extends beyond education and rationality and is the basis for a particular way of understanding everything.

Through his use of the building metaphor and also by his developments in mathematics, science, and general philosophy, Descartes is the quintessential man of the Scientific Revolution. Although the confining beliefs of the Church are present in his works (as well as what might be considered his holding back for fear of repercussions) they still are invaluable—even in our postmodern society. “Like Wittgenstein, Descartes enjoys a tribute that modern philosophers rarely offer their predecessors. He is still taken seriously enough to be attacked…in histories of philosophy, he marks the beginning of modernity and seriousness” (Grafton 37). This “seriousness” can mean the fact that he is someone to take seriously that came from an age where the Church had a great deal of power, especially in terms of how it was able to guide the entire belief system of people throughout a number of centuries. Many of the works produced during this time of Church control have been mostly disregarded and left only as academic relics from a less enlightened time. The worksof Descartes represent a clear break with this tradition and as a result, Descartes still has a place in the modern classroom and life in general. Through the building metaphor it is possible to see not only a microcosm of Descartes’ beliefs, but a system for understanding our world today that is still fresh.

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Works Cited

Bruns, Gerald L. “A Literary Guide to Discourse on Method” Boundary 2 8.2 (1980), 141-164.

De Warren, Nicolas. “How Thinking Must also Be: Authored Skepticism and the Authorization of Knowledge in Descartes.” Romance Quarterly 50.2 (2003), 149-160

Descartes. Discourse on Method Ed. Donald Cress. New York. Hackett Publishing Co. 1997.

Grafton, Anthony. “Descartes the dreamer.” Wilson Quarterly 20.4 (1996), 36-46.