História e Verdade(s), vol. 23

CARLOTA BOTO
History, truth and virtue in Rousseau: political pact and pedagogical ethic.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the political and pedagogical thinking of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in order to look for possible connections between the idea of virtue, the idea of truth and the category of temporality in his line of discourse. Trying to read Emile in the light of the analysis of the author's social and political work - specifically the Discourse on the sciences and the arts, and The Social Contract - we try to verify whether the pedagogical treatise proves the thesis implicit in Rousseauistic thought, according to which the path of the life of each individual reproduces the stages of the advance of the species, from the natural state to the civil state. Furthermore, the hypothesis that we defend herein is that, in the same way as the first acceptation of the natural state is not meant to be based on factual and historical truth (although it is intended that it attain a given philosophical truth), Emile also was not intended to be regarded as a real child; therefore, the necessary correspondence between the exposition of the several stages in his life and the specificities of the concrete historical child does not exist. Emile would be, reather, an allegory, inducing meditation on education, in the same way as the idea of a pacto points toward an effective operative construction for reflecting on civil society. In both cases, Rousseau conceptually creates an analytical, hypothetical-deductive operation, based on which he develops his unique concept of man, virtue, society and education. This methodological operation forcibly dialogues with a fairly unique way of thinking about the idea of history and the idea of truth.