Dalla «metafisica illuminista» alle prime esperienze educative per i disabili sensoriali: un’importante eredità pedagogica

[Autom. eng. transl.] The paper intends to reconstruct the educational experiences for young sensory disabled people that were realized thanks to the work of Charles-Michel de l'Épée (1712-1789), Valentin Haüy (1745-1822) and Louis Braille (1809-1852). Considering the cultural context of the time, deeply marked by the Enlightenment and by its interest in the cognitive problems of sensory disabled people, not only didactic tools used by those educators but also the motivations and aims they inspired constitute an interesting object of investigation to analyze the complex relationship between the philosophy of Enlightenment and special education and to trace the pedagogical legacy handed down to us by the precursors of didactics for the deaf and the blind.