Alan Bloom’s new translation of Emile, Rousseau’s masterpiece on the education and training of the young, is the first in more than seventy years. In it, Bloom, whose magnificent translation of Plato’s Republic has been universally hailed as a virtual rediscovery of that timeless text, again brings together the translator’s gift for journeying between two languages and cultures and the philosopher’s perception of the true meaning and significance of the issues being examined in the work. The result is a clear, readable, and highly engrossing text that at the same time offers a wholly new sense of the importance and relevance of Rousseau’s thought to us.In addition to his translation, Bloom provides a brilliant introduction that relates the structure and themes of the book to the vital preoccupation's of our own age, particularly in the field of education, but also more generally to the current concerns about the limits and possibilities of human nature. Thus in this translation Emile, long a classic in the history of Western thought and educational theory, becomes something more: a prescription, fresh and dazzling, for the bringing up of autonomous, responsible—that is, truly democratic—human beings.
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60 of 66 people found the following review helpful
By "brianap1"
Format:Paperback
A natural education is one that "consists not in teaching the child many things, but never letting anything but accurate and clear ideas enter his brain."
Rousseau, in his longing to return to the state of nature, ventures to raise a natural man. Emile (or On Education) is the Corner Stone to Rousseau's "Discourse on the Sciences and Arts" & "Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality." Rousseau's imaginary pupil, Emile, will "get his lessons from nature and not from men." Rousseau is not concerned with teaching Emile numerous facts, but with instructing the child to be able to think for himself.
Emile will have one mentor, Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe is Rousseau's modern natural man. Crusoe is "on his island, alone, deprived of the assistance of all the arts, providing nevertheless for his subsistence." Rousseau goes to extremes to create a childhood that is free from habit, and one that provides Emile with the greatest adaptability to his surroundings, whatever they may be, for the rest of his life.
Rousseau's ideas are profound. Though he is far less well known than Marx, Nietzsche, and or Weber, to name a few, his ideas are the basis for the philosophies' of these men, who have in return influenced society. Along with Rousseau's Two Discourses, Emile is a must read. (I recommend reading the Discourses before Emile.) However, do not expect Rousseau to tell you everything because he does not spend an extensive time explaining all of the minute details, especially those regarding the first few years of Emile's life. Rather, he says, "if you have to be told everything, do not read me."
If you are interested in the foundation of thought for many of the most influential philosophers of modern Europe, then read Emile. (I recommend the Allan Bloom translation.)
38 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Heersink's distillation of the "essence" of Rousseau's Emile is so bazaar, tendentious and misleading that I am left to wonder whether he has read a single page of the book that he finds so tedious and banal. Nature, for Rousseau, is not the vast open spaces of the great outdoors; it is rather, the totality of created beings such as they exist prior to their being worked over by human artifice, and, in particular, the inner, inborn nature of human beings before it has been deflected, distorted, and perverted through their reciprocal, social interaction. In Emile, Rousseau sets out to show how, even in the midst of the corrupting forces of society, it might still be possible to raise a healthy, fully-actualized, harmonious individual; a human being whose inner nature is developed and realized in its potentialities. Such an education is not possible under the instruction of trees, bears and geysers, but only through the most exquisite attentiveness of the tutor, who, through constant vigilance, tries to develop the mind and sentiments of his pupil without giving a foothold to the social passions that make children vain, greedy, manipulative, and deceitful. This requires, above all, that at every moment, the child should learn to judge its actions by their natural effects, and feel its own will limited by the resistance of the nature without it, rather than by the will of other human beings. For whereas the child will submit easily to the force of nature, it will do everything to overcome the force that oppose it once it regards them as expressions of a human will.
I disagree with Rousseau about many things, even about the most fundamental issues. Most of all, I do not think that what it means to be human should be thought limited by a pre-existing, and pristine human nature. Yet I also believe that, now more than ever, we must take Rousseau seriously, and read him rigorously - not merely as an antiquarian piece, but as a profound challenge to our conceits and myopias. There can be no true democracy without citizens who are free not only in the eyes of the law, but in their own eyes; yet we cannot recognize others as free, unless we have eyes for our own freedom. This demands nothing less than a liberal education. In place of this, we have entrusted our children to those whose seek only their own gain and who profit by tapping into human desires, dissociating them from the whole, and crystalizing them into a form in which it seems as though they could be satisfied through some given commodity. As a result, we have become, in the words of my friend, the social critic Dan A. Leythorn, "a nation of slaves - to our desires, to our whims, to money, to power, to each other"
I disagree with Rousseau about many things, even about the most fundamental issues. Most of all, I do not think that what it means to be human should be thought limited by a pre-existing, and pristine human nature. Yet I also believe that, now more than ever, we must take Rousseau seriously, and read him rigorously - not merely as an antiquarian piece, but as a profound challenge to our conceits and myopias. There can be no true democracy without citizens who are free not only in the eyes of the law, but in their own eyes; yet we cannot recognize others as free, unless we have eyes for our own freedom. This demands nothing less than a liberal education. In place of this, we have entrusted our children to those whose seek only their own gain and who profit by tapping into human desires, dissociating them from the whole, and crystalizing them into a form in which it seems as though they could be satisfied through some given commodity. As a result, we have become, in the words of my friend, the social critic Dan A. Leythorn, "a nation of slaves - to our desires, to our whims, to money, to power, to each other"
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Basic Books edition of EMILE by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Allan Bloom translator, is still in print and is far and away the best English version available for the money. The Amazon page gives the impression that the book is out of print. This is not true.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dreadfully boring
Rousseau, Kant, and Dewey share many similarities--knowledge through intuition, innate ideas, reality based on consciousness, to name just a few. Read more
Published 8 days ago by Reviewer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thanks you Shipped Quick
The book got here extreamly fast which is very supprising because I'm not stationed in the U.S. I will read this book dilligently as my wife has this book in Korean.
Published 2 months ago by Aznlife9
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book
Rousseau has an amazing capacity for rapid thought, and digresses quite often into interesting subjects while revealing the education of Emile.
Published 12 months ago by kappiak
5.0 out of 5 stars
Emilie
A remarkable book by a remarkable philosopher. Amazon was ready willing and able to provide it to me. George Whitney
Published 22 months ago by george
4.0 out of 5 stars
review for emile: or, on education
it is in a great condition, however it came little bit late than i expected.
but still i am very happy with my purchase. thank you.
but still i am very happy with my purchase. thank you.
Published on December 19, 2010 by sipsirin
4.0 out of 5 stars
Post-Modern Child Rearing
A deceptively simple text. Rousseau has distanced himself from the Social Contract and the concept of the noble savage here, and has decided to illustrate the principles of an... Read more
Published on April 12, 2007 by Steiner
5.0 out of 5 stars
great book, great translation
Rousseau has a reputation as a hypocrite and a left wing nut job. He certainly didn't practice what he preached but his writings cannot be reduced to serve mere partisan purposes. Read more
Published on November 12, 2004 by Burl Horniachek
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not the Best Rousseau
Three works mark Rousseau: Confessions, Social Contract, and Inequality. "Emile" is a tedious tome that espouses at great, if not banal, length the issues he has more adequately... Read more
Published on February 14, 2002 by D. S. Heersink
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