Under the sign of Enlightenment: Metaphysics in the Enlightenment pedagogical text of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I here offer a deconstructive reading of a text that has become exemplary of "modernity": the pedagogical text of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This text is generally interpreted under the sign of "Enlightenment." Under this sign an epoch of history is imagined within what might be called a grand linear narrative of light, unity, and progress. The sign of enlightenment: all of existence is interpreted within its orbit, under its illumination, and within a set of "frames" which attempt to describe the real as the rational; a metaphorics of light and development is offered as a way into and through existence, under the enframing assumption that this metaphorics brings reality "into view" and "under control." Pedagogy and its sister "concept" politics become linked as part of a narrative economy supposedly producing a body of enlightened citizens, components of an open, free, and progressive cosmo-polis.;I attempt to approach the Enlightenment economy of signs from a post-Enlightenment "direction" in an effort to unravel the web of meaning woven in and through the texts enframed under this particular sign. The focus is on the linkage between what we see as a series of figures such as Enlightenment, pedagogy, knowledge, and philosophy as they are strung together in self legitimizing sub-text which goes under the proper name "Jean-Jacques Rousseau." This figure is often taken as exemplary of the Enlightenment pedagogical text and of enlightenment itself. I call into question the metaphysics within which this entire text is enframed.;Enlightenment pedagogy and history have achieved something like the status of ritual in the West. Like badly cultivated flowers, these rituals have been allowed to overgrow under the sign of Enlightenment. The Enlightenment garden might be seen as a series of frail metaphysical flowers turning towards the sun, beautiful flowers, perhaps, but flowers grown far beyond good horticultural taste. I retire to this garden, then, for a brief pruning.