Epistemology, Education & Childhood: Victor’s of Aveyron Silent Resistance

Abstract

Our attempt in this article is to analyze from an epistemological point of view the scientific resumption about the discussion on the “wild” child of Aveyron that began in the late Enlightenment, in the field of medical-pedagogical method and practices, and which is extended in the middle of the twentieth century along the scope of social sciences. We consider that the scientific research methodology, and the treatments applied to educate and transform the “wild” child by scourging their senses, teaching language and civilized customs make him not only a “case” or “object” of scientific investigation, but also an "abnormal", exposed to confinement, experimentation and physical degradation. This time, we question the device called the “anthropological machine” that articulates the epistemological antinomy of nature and culture, that ontologically constitutes the inferior status of the “wild” child as a “critter”. From Agamben’s philosophical theory of childhood as a critical alternative, we develop the concepts of “silence”, “resistance” and “epistemological irruption” to address the ontological and epistemic questions that concern Víctor de Aveyron since a new philosophical perspective.