Questions regarding Sophie

Rousseau’s inclusion of Sophie gives us a better idea of what Rousseau is trying to do with his educational philosophy. It reveals him as far less utopian than he might initially seem. (Particularly in appearances utilized in the society depicts and embodies in women’s relations). Rousseau suggests Sophie’s education as being there to make men feel whole.

How do you feel about this?

Do you think men and women are essentially, naturally, different?

Do you think they should be educated differently?

Taking into account the recent, and longstanding, reports about inequality for boys at school, could we perhaps suggest that they are different?

Could this difference be society’s corruption of the Emile’s, the boys, of the world? To do away with corrupt systems of relation for boys and more generative ones for girls? Or is it a natural, internal difference?

Is it perhaps HARDER to educate boys - and this is what Rousseau is dealing with?

What about ‘amour propre’? The unhealthy dependency on others opinions?

Rousseau states that men are born twice: once to exist and once to live. What if we view the second as ‘amour propre’?

It could then be argued that Rousseau actually, therefore, shows brilliant insight into the balance between the individual and society; particularly the constructs of society (which must be engaged with but) which are not easily changed.

Even today men and women behave and are treated very differently by society.