Abstract

In the present text, the authors deals with the specific phenomenon of the so-called wild children, i. e. human beings deprived of contact with other members of the human species. We concentrate on a particular historical case – Victor of Aveyron, a wild child found in France in the end of the 18thcentury who has been submitted to remarkable pedagogical procedures conducted by J.-M. Itard. We attempt to highlight Itard’s philosophical background and to show how his philosophical conjectures might have influenced his practical pedagogical approach especially in the domain of language acquisition.