Kant e Itard y la “educación” de un “niño salvaje”.

Abstract

This article is a reflection arising from the analysis conducted in the thesis presented to obtain the Master’s degree in Educa-tion at the National Pedagogic University of Colombia. In 1799, in France, an 11-year-old boy was found in a wild state; those who found him referred to him as a“wild child” and later named him “Victor”. Jean Itard met this “wild child” and attempted to educate him, as unlike the scholars of his time who speculated that the child was a hopeless idiot, Itard recognized Victor as a normal child who, due to unknown circumstances, had not had contact with other humans. Around the same time, Kant’s Treatise on Pedagogy was published, in which some positions align with those of Itard: 1) both emphasize that early socialization is a required condition for the conception of rationality and subsequently morality in an individual; 2) like Kant, Itard rejects the existence of “innate ideas”; 3) both believe that care, discipline and instruction are necessary in the education of the subject (Kant as an idea, Itard in practice).