This essay will analyse and assess whether the claim that Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s argued in “Children Should Not Be Reasoned with” is cogent. It is cogent because his claims about education making a reasoning man is the reason why children should not be educated to be a reasoning man, is sound since the ending conclusion is true and does follow after the premises, which makes it valid.
When analysing the article, it is best understood that it is a deductive argument. A deductive argument is one where a leading conclusion is followed by a series of premises, in which it makes the conclusion impossible to be false if the premises are true. Rousseau begins his argument in the first paragraph by stating that “education is to make a reasoning man” (Rousseau 1) and should only give children the opportunity to develop their own abilities and to help defend them from the influences of society, not to reason to the point where they find fault in everything that is being said to them. The premises that Rousseau made to support his conclusion was that children should continue being children before they grow up or else they would be “unripe and tasteless” (Rousseau 2). It is inevitable that children would act unreasonable because they are growing, emotional human beings and need instant gratification; it is part of growing up and learning from their
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His conclusion was reinforced by two premises: that children should continue being children because they do not comprehend reasoning the same way adults do, and that reasoning with children will reinforce deceitful and dishonest behaviours in order to avoid punishment. By analysis and assessing this article, a conclusion was drawn that since both the premise and the conclusion are true, it makes this a deductive, valid and sound