THE TOPICALITY OF ROUSSEAU'S SOCIAL CONTRACT

contributions for education

Abstract

In times that crumbles the fundamentals of prospects for new covenants in favor of new understandings through the crisis of metaphysics and the supposed crisis in education, reading Rousseau's Social Contract is timely. Scarcely living with men, but with a keen sensitivity to understand them, Rousseau constitutes a reference point for further studies in different fields of knowledge. This text intends to present some points of cleavage of his work, at a first moment; next, it resumes one of his foundational concepts: that of general will. It also points to the richness of this principle in establishing new agreements in the field of education. But what would be the possibility of man abandoning his particular will and to act according to the general will? The answer to this question is what we shall demonstrate in this study.