Dans le contexte d'une remise en question de la mission des institutions publiques d'enseignement, il y a lieu de se poser à nouveau les grandes questions touchant les finalités de l'éducation. À cette fin, nous jugeons primordial de nous intéresser à la justification du projet d'école moderne qui est actuellement remis en cause. Dans le présent mémoire, nous nous proposons d'approfondir deux philosophies qui ont profondément marqué les différentes doctrines modernes de l'éducation. Nous aborderons d'abord la philosophie de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Sa conception de l'idéal éducatif peut être qualifiée d'éthique et elle tire sa substance d'une anthropologie sous-jacente dont nous allons récapituler les principaux moments. Dans un second temps, nous nous tournerons vers la philosophie du marquis de Condorcet, qui développe, quant à elle une conception plutôt politique de l'instruction, faisant fond sur une définition "républicaine" de la destinée humaine. Nous verrons que même si ces deux auteurs partagent une réflexion qui pose la Raison comme principe supérieur permettant de juger de la validité de tout acte éducatif, des différences sensibles dans leur interprétation de ce principe ont mené à des conceptions de l'éducation contrastées, voire opposées. Pourtant, ces deux conceptions représentent ensemble les deux pôles de l'horizon de la pratique éducative moderne, horizon dans lequel peut être contextualisée la crise actuelle de l'éducation, mais aussi dans lequel peuvent aussi être retrouvées les ressources pour une rénovation de l'idéal et des pratiques contemporaines d'éducation. C'est au travail de clarification de ces fins dernières que ce mémoire aimerait contribuer.

Pareils à nombre de révolutionnaires français, Robespierre et Condorcet souhaitent rompre avec l'Ancien régime en reconnaissant la souveraineté naturelle du peuple et les droits naturels des hommes. Cependant, en démocrates assumés et conséquents, ils se singularisent en présentant la nécessité du gouvernement représentatif comme une étape provisoire de la réalisation libre et heureuse des hommes et non comme une fin. Convaincus d’une nature humaine perfectible, habilitant l’homme à un devenir libre et heureux, les deux révolutionnaires sont conduits à promouvoir, l’idée d’un droit perfectible et celle d’une constitution transitoire capable d’articuler souveraineté du peuple et gouvernement à la naturalisation progressive des institutions et des hommes. Les progrès de l’autoconstitution du peuple souverain, appuyés par ses représentants provisoires, engagent les conditions d’une autonomisation de la société et ouvrent la voie à celle de l’individu en réconciliant l’État et la société. / Like many French revolutionaries, Robespierre and Condorcet wish to break with the Ancien Régime (Old Regime) by acknowledging the natural sovereignty of the people and the natural rights of men. However, as asserted and consistent democrats, they stand out by presenting the need of a representative government, not as an end, but as a provisional step to men’s achievement of freedom and happiness. Convinced of a perfectible human nature, empowering man to become free and happy, the two revolutionaries are led to promote the idea of a perfectible right and a transitional constitution which can connect sovereignty of the people and government to progressive naturalization of institutions and men. The progress in self-constitution of popular sovereignty, supported by its temporary representatives, sets the conditions of society’s empowerment and paves the way to that of the individual by reconciling the State and the society.

Democracy seems to be in crisis and scholars have started to consider the possibility that “the only game in town” might be rigged. This book theorizes the crisis of democracy from a structural point of view, arguing that liberal representative governments suffer from systemic corruption, a form of political decay that should be understood as the oligarchization of society, and proposes an anti-oligarchic institutional solution based on a radical interpretation of republican constitutional thought. If one agrees that the minimal normative expectation of liberal democracies is that governments should advance the welfare of the majority within constitutional safeguards, increasing income inequality and the relative immiseration of the majority of citizens would be in itself a deviation from good rule, a sign of corruption. As a way to understand how we could revert the current patterns of political corruption, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the institutional, procedural, and normative innovations to protect political liberty proposed by Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolas de Condorcet, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt. Because their ideas to institutionalize popular power have consistently been misunderstood, instrumentalized, demonized, or neglected, part of what this project wants to accomplish is to offer a serious engagement with their proposals through a plebeian interpretative lens that renders them as part of the same intellectual tradition. In this way, the book assembles a “B side” of constitutional thought composed of the apparent misfits in a tradition that has been dominated by the impulse to suppress conflict instead of harnessing its liberty-producing properties. As a way to effectively deal with systemic corruption and oligarchic domination, the book proposes to follow this plebeian constitutionalism and instituionalize popular collective power. A proposed plebeian branch would be autonomous and aimed not at achieving self-government or direct democracy, but rather at an effort to both judge and censor elites who rule. The plebeian branch would consist of two institutions: a decentralized network of radically inclusive local assemblies, empowered to initiate and veto legislation as well as to exercise periodic constituent power, and a delegate, surveillance office able to enforce decisions and impeach public officials. The establishment of primary assemblies at the local level would not only allow ordinary people to push back against oligarchic domination through the political system but also inaugurate an institutional conception of the people as the many assembled locally: a political collective agent operating as a network of political judgment in permanent flow. The people as network would be a political subject with as many brains as assemblies, in which collective learning, reaction against domination, and social change would occur organically and independently from representative government and political parties.

This study examines three important conceptions of social and human progress, evaluates them critically, and proposes an alternative conception of a rather different type. The first three conceptions are respectively found in, or at least based on, Condorcet’s theory of the historical progress of the sciences and the arts; Adam Smith’s conception of the progressive increase of national wealth; and Karl Marx’s ideal of the communist society. Despite their fundamental differences, these three theories have several common elements. Each one proposes a social project aimed at achieving an ideal society; each ultimately seeks the improvement of the human condition; each focuses however on social rather than human progress, so that its conception of the latter (and of humanness) must be constructed from a set of associated ideas about human nature, life, needs, worth, potential, or fulfilment, and about relations among these.

Ce mémoire étudie comment Condorcet, Hegel, Durkheim, Parsons, Bourdieu et Passeron conçoivent les fonctions respectives de la famille et de l’école en matière d’éducation. Depuis la Révolution française, les idées modernes sur ce partage ont beaucoup évoluées. C’est à titre de témoins éminents de cette évolution que ces auteurs sont interrogés. Toutes héritières des principes issus du siècle des Lumières, les conceptions étudiées varient selon le rapport à l’ordre social et selon l’intention qui les guide ; le bonheur universel qui fait autorité sur la liberté de l’individu en formation devient de moins en moins abstrait. En tant que finalité, cet idéal se fait supplanter, presque, par la question du bonheur individuel, pourtant soumise aujourd’hui à l’exigence de la réussite scolaire. La responsabilité individuelle s’en trouve accrue, puisque, depuis que les structures sociales inégalitaires ont été sévèrement critiquées, l’ordre social ne doit plus reposer sur des déterminations de classe. / This study examines how Condorcet, Hegel, Durkheim, Parsons, Bourdieu and Passeron perceive the roles of both the family and the school with regard to upbringing. Since the French Revolution, these perceptions have greatly evolved. We refer to these authors since they clearly represent the context of this evolution. Although these perceptions have inherited principles originating from the Enlightenment, they vary according to the relationship with society and the intentions by which they are guided. Universal happiness, which has an impact on the freedom of the growing individual, becomes less and less abstract. In the end, this ideal is almost surpassed by the freedom of personal happiness, which still depends today on success in school, as it is a generally accepted requirement. The responsibility of each individual is amplified, because, ever since unequal social structures have been highly criticized, social order shall no longer be based upon class determination.