Dalla "metafisica illuminista" alle prime esperienze educative per i disabili sensoriali: un'importante eredità pedagogica

  • Paolo Alfieri

Abstract

The paper aims to reconstruct the educational experiences for young people with sensory disabilities that were made by Charles-Michel de l’Épée (1712-1789), Valentin Haüy (1745-1822) e Louis Braille (1809-1852). Considering the cultural context of the time, deeply marked by the Enlightenment and its interest in the cognitive problems of sensory disabilities, not only the teaching tools used by those educators but also the ideal reasons and purposes which inspired them constitute an interesting object of investigation to analyze the complex relationship between that philosophical movement and special education and to trace the pedagogical heritage handed down to us from those precursors of didactics for the deaf-mutes and for the blind.