Volume 13 · Issue 2 · June 2026
Natural Education and the Principles of Epistemology by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Hemn Rasul Hamdamin, Muslim Hassan Mohammed
As one of the pioneers of European Enlightenment philosophy and social covenant, Rousseau advocated freedom and public will, believing that man is endowed with this freedom by nature. A free and independent citizen learns and develops through his own natural experiences and his opinions are shaped, the individual must be in active communication with nature, sovereign over its moral and rational issues, to achieve this goal, the philosophy of natural education as one of the new directions, criticizes and rejects the directions of traditional education, so Rousseau's educational views left a strong influence on the school and philosophers after him, this influence continues to this day. Rousseau's views are mainly expressed in the book of (Emile), He believes that the education process should be in line with the stages of natural development of children, not directed by culture, processes and social agreements in society. Because nature gives man complete will and freedom from the beginning, but society and its institutions deprive him, moral values and human actions are related to nature and under natural laws, not above it. Man is considered to know nature as a child, not society. This paper examines the philosophy of education from Rousseau's perspective using analytical approach. In this paper, the concept of nature in general and the nature of children and the principles of knowledge are discussed. Children's participation in the education process and empirical education reveal Rousseau's significant in the field of education.
