Nature, to Rousseau, is the most valuable aspect of the development of a person. Nature, simply defined as “habit” on the second page of the text, is the default experience, something instilled in us since birth. He goes on to state that education through nature is the one thing that keeps a person consistent, no matter where life takes him or her. On the contrary, a formal education keeps someone stationary, and leaves them unable to adapt to the ever-changing conditions of life. On page 15, he goes on to say that following nature will make a pupil unbiased in their social interactions, and that “he will ask it of a king as readily as of his servant; all men are equals in his eyes” (14).
Rousseau’s reference to the “book of nature” parallels Descartes’ “book of the world”, and Locke’s stance on “experience”. Descartes’ presents the world as the ultimate teacher, and Locke says that experience is the ultimate medium of learning and education. Descartes discusses how the “book of the world” granted him with not only a different kind of knowledge, but more of it in the most general sense. Rousseau, like Descartes, implies that being well versed in the “book of nature” allows one to be more flexible and better off, regardless of their ability to process the burdens of the education system. Locke, like Rousseau, believes that naturally we are better off, and that society shapes our experiences too much, making us too biased.
One thought on “Nature, Experience, and the World”
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Your response is well focused. I do have some comments about how you’re reading the theories.
1) I believe Rousseau describes “education” (not nature) as habit.
2) for Locke experience is the medium of the self (not so much of education and learning …. at least in what we read, he does not make such a comment on education and learning and books).
3) for Descartes the book of the world ultimately turns out to be as diverse, contradicting, and unreliable as the books in academy.
One thing that would have helped would have been for you to have provided the textual examples from Locke and Descartes (and even a little more with Rousseau) that lead you to make these claims about their work. Finding the quotes would have either changed your mine or forced you to explain how you were concluding your ideas from the text.