WORK AND IDLENESS IN ROUSSEAU'S EMILE

Abstract

Teaching works and handcrafts that are capable to make an individual self-sufficient and a concern with keeping him away from idleness are questions that occupy Rousseau’s attention, especially in his book Emile. This paper aims to address the notion of “work” (travail) under three different (and complementary) points of view: firstly, an education for labor capable of keeping the student away from idleness, turning Emile into an active and vigorous young apprentice, and thus avoiding corporal illness linked to inaction; secondly, to focus on the notion of work in Emile’s education considering its contribution to the cognitive abilities of the pupil, that is to say, how the exercises of the body and the learning of handcrafts will help him in his intellectual upbringing; finally, in a third moment we will seek to present a fundamental step, consisting in choosing a métier for the student, aiming his education to independence and to making him useful to the society in which he shall choose to live. In a last moment of this paper, we shall indicate how Rousseau paves the way for a critique of the division of labor.