Savage or Solitary?: The Wild Child and Rousseau's Man of Nature

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men" imagines a state of nature in which a creature bearing an "exact physical resemblance" to human beings leads a "simple, solitary, uniform existence." Yousef discusses how Rousseau's ima...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the history of ideas 2001-04, Vol.62 (2), p.245-263
Main Author: Yousef, Nancy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Children
Desire
Discourse
Enlightenment thought
France
History
History of political ideas
Human nature
Humanity
Humans
Hunger
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Literary criticism
Mental disorders
Nature
Philosophy
Philosophy of culture. Philosophical anthropology
Primitivism
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)
Scars
State of nature
Statues
Supernaturalism
Swiss literature
Citations: Items that cite this one
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Summary:Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men" imagines a state of nature in which a creature bearing an "exact physical resemblance" to human beings leads a "simple, solitary, uniform existence." Yousef discusses how Rousseau's image of original human nature has come to serve as a diagnostic template for the severe linguistic, cognitive, and affective impairments associated with such rare cases of extreme isolation.
ISSN:0022-5037
1086-3222
1086-3222
DOI:10.1353/jhi.2001.0021