Quote of the Day

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For reasons that don't need expanding at this juncture (read: work) I'm currently revising some political philosophers (have I done anything with those fellows since upper secondary school philosophy? the answer is 'lol no') and came across this in an article. It's in reference to Rousseau's Emile, specifically the concept of moral education and development of compassion, and I just thought it was a lovely paragraph that really spoke to me. And also, because disciplinary boundaries are for the weak, fits incredibly well into my psych sessions on theory of mind and empathy development. Anyway, sharing.

 

"Love for oneself is at first a mere instinct of self-preservation. Then it extends to everything that matters: parents, friends, and so on. Human existence is not confined to the limits of a physical body. It extends to every place in the world to which an individual can transport himself in imagination, any place to which he can be attached. I have a feeling of my own existence in any place, in any moment of the past, or of the future, to which I can transport myself and feel concerned. So, when I put myself in the place of another human being, when I experience the consciousness he has of his own situation, the sympathy I feel for the other is an extension of love for myself. It means that I include him in the sphere of my own existence." (Canivez, 2004: 397)

Full ref: Canivez, P. (2004). Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Concept of People. Philosophy & Social Criticism: An International, Interdisciplinary Journal, 30(4):  393–412.

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