Chapter 8: The Age of Enlightenment

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Chapter 8 The Age of Enlightenment

• Section 8.36 The Philosophes and Others

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Enlightenment
Newtons Principia
Diderots Encyclopedie
Rousseaus Social Contract Emile
Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations
1687 1748 1751 1759 1762 1764 1776
1794
Condorcet Maximilien Robespierre executed
Voltaires Candide
Montesquieus Spirit of Laws
Beccarias On Crime and Punishment
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Basic Premises

• Reason
• Progress
• All of mankind will eventually share in the
  benefits of reason
• Natural/Universal laws
• universe is governed by natural laws which are
  knowable
• scientific method
• can unlock fundamental answer in all areas
• In nature and in human mind
• education
• All humans can be taught to reason
• Will infinitely improve it
• past regarded dark barbaric

• Religious toleration
• Equality
• Fair and equal legal system and tax
• The main agency of progress was to be the state
• Limited monarchy Montesquieu
• Enlightened despotism Voltaire
• Republican commonwealth Rousseau
• Extremely skeptical of tradition
• Rejected superstitions
• rejected revealed religion
• Deistic- God is a clockmaker

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Reactionary Movement in Religion

• Still a religious time
• Congregations first sang Adeste Fideles (Oh Come
  All Ye Faithful)
• Pietism movement stirred in Germany
• stressed inner spiritual experience of ordinary
  person and quest for an inner light of the soul
• John Wesley and Methodism
• student at Oxford
• Led prayer groups
• Good works
• Initiated religious revival in England
• Methodists
• Whitfield in the Americas
• Preacher (Toured America)
• Democratizing effect individual worth
• Spawned the Great Awakening

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The Philosophes

• Leaders of the Enlightenment period
• French for philosopher
• Writers
• not philosophers in the metaphysical sense
• Were social, literary writers, critics, who
  discussed matters with each other
• Diffused Enlightenment ideas

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Philosphes Audience and Style

• Literacy rising by mid 18th century
• Literacy rates 47 men, 27 women
• Approach any subject in a critical and inquiring
  spirit
• Through their writings they spread the ideas of
  the Enlightenment
• Writers independent of aristocratic patrons
• (grub-street writers) Freelancers that wrote for
  the public
• Public opinion becomes important
• Had to deal with Censorship
• Metaphoric style

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Paris The Epicenter

• Paris
• Epicenter of the enlightenment
• Salon
• held in the townhouses of the wealthy
• usually conducted by women
• Facilitated the exchange of ideas
• Promoted the Republic of Letters
• authors could introduce new works and engage in
  lively conversation among of rock stars

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Encyclopedie

• Compendium of scientific, technical, historical
  knowledge
• 17 volumes (1751-1772)
• a summation and means of diffusing the most
  recent knowledge in science, philosophy, and
  technology
• meant to be read through and not used as a
  reference
• all traditions must be examined
• directly challenged the Church
• helped spread Enlightenment ideas
• distinguished list of contributors
• Diderot (1713-1784)
• Chief editor
• had a materialistic philosophy
• 25 thou sold before Rev.

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Montesquieu (1689-1755)

• Spirit of Laws (1748)
• looked at the way environments and religious
  traditions influenced governments
• forms of government varied according to climate
  and circumstances
• empires worked in hot climates
• democracy worked in small city-states
• in spite of environmental handicaps gov. can
  imitate English system
• Separate and balanced powers (executive,
  judicial, legislative)
• Prevented arbitrary power by having a system of
  checks and balances
• Balance of powers by dividing the jobs of
  government
• Executive, legislative, and judicial
• Part of the noble resurgence that began about
  1715
• Nobility would be the most powerful
• technically a reactionary
• A strong nobility to check power of absolute
  monarch

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Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet) (1694-1778)

• greatest Philosophes
• made French thinkers more practical, less
  theoretical
• 1st to present a purely secular conception of
  world history
• politically not a liberal or democrat
• low opinion of humanity
• Favored Enlightened Despotism (not quite
  absolutism)
• must fight against sloth, stupidity, keep clergy
  in place, freedom of religion/speech
• but he had no developed political theory

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Voltaires Social Views

• ardent spokesman for civil liberties
• Crush Infamy (Ecrasez linfame) he called for
  the eradication of all forms of repression,
  fanaticism, and bigotry
• the individual who persecutes another because he
  is not of the same opinion is nothing less than a
  monster
• I do not agree with a word you are saying, but I
  will defend to the death your right to say it.
• Hated religious bigotry the most
• It is forbidden to kill therefore all murders
  are punished unless they kill in large numbers
  and to the sound of trumpets.

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Candide (1759)

• Satire on Enlightenment (Optimists)
• Written shortly after the Lisbon earthquake of
  1755
• Rejects unquestioned optimism
• Candide is lulled into false security that he is
  in the best of all possible worlds by his
  tutor, Dr. Pangloss and journeys throughout the
  world
• has one misfortune after another
• Eldorado
• a land that has no priests, law courts, or
  prisons but and a place of sciences and math
• a rip on idea of perfectibility
• Candide gets bored in Eldorado (being a restless
  mortal) and leaves
• we must tend our garden

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

• Promoted the idea of the noble savage
• Civilization was the source of corruption
• Only in a natural state could man live an
  uncorrupted existence
• Considered an outsider who quarreled with other
  philosophes
• Concerned with reforming society, diffusing
  useful knowledge, freedom
• despised privilege believed that just and moral
  society could be created by crushing repressive
  governments
• Nature over Reason
• Considered the forerunner of the French
  Revolution, American Revolution, Communism (Pol
  Pot), Romanticism, and Totalitarianism
• Had greatest influence on education and political
  theory

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Origin of Inequality Among Men (1753)

• Essay contest of Academy of Dijon
• Has the progress of arts and sciences benefited
  man?
• NO
• Man in original state
• Good
• Amour de soi (good self love)
• Agriculture led to concept of private property
• Led man to judge others
• Judgments led to the creation of laws
• Man lost his freedom
• Amour propre (conceit, vanity, self-love)

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The Social Contract (1762)

• Not a contract between a ruler and the ruled
• An agreement among the people
• Individuals surrendered their natural liberty to
  each other
• This fused into the General Will
• Rulings of the General Will were final and all
  agreed to accept them
• The general will was the sovereign
• Kings, officials, representatives were delegates
  of a sovereign people
• Created a state in which all persons had a sense
  of membership
• complimented Origins of Inequality Emile in
  creating a moral society
• said in the state of nature man is born free
• institution of private property led to owners
  creating instruments of repression (laws, police,
  slavery)

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Emile (1762)

• source of progressive education
• maxim that first impulses of nature are always
  right
• insisted that children are not miniature adults
• drilling and discipline not proper for them
• learn by doing (experience)
• book learning postponed until adolescence since
  books teach us only to talk about things we do
  not know
• reason is last thing to develop and it is
  pointless to teach child to reason
• education should create moral and useful citizens
  
• women belong at home serving men
• written as a how to in which Rousseau takes an
  imaginary boy (orphan) and raises him to adulthood

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Condorcet (1743-1794) Faith in Progress

• considered the last of the philosophes b/c his
  work was cut short by the Revolution
• mathematician but known most for his belief in
  progress
• thinkers of the 1600s regarded themselves modern
  and intellectually superior to the ancients
• Progress of the Human Mind (1794) attested that
  the moderns were more advanced and unlimited
  progress lay ahead
• predicted healthier society in which moment will
  comewhen tyrants and slaves will exist only in
  history or on the stage
• Ironically he would be killed during the Terror

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Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

• Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788)
• covers Roman and Byzantine history from Augustine
  to fall of Constantinople (1453)
• says Empire was brought down by barbarian
  invasions, and Christianity
• Christianity was worst calamity b/c the servile
  and pusillanimous reign of the monks debased and
  vitiated the faculties of the mind

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Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

• Milanese jurist who wrote On Crimes and
  Punishments (1764)
• questioned the view that punishment represent the
  vengeance of society
• said that punishment should serve as a deterrent
  and that leniency was best deterrent
• opposed the death penalty
• book translated into 12 languages and most
  European countries abolished torture (1800) and
  reserved death penalty for capital crimes,
  adopted imprisonment rather than maiming

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Adam Smith (1723-1790)

• Wealth of Nations (1776)
• opposed mercantilism
• gov. purpose should be limited to defense,
  internal security, give fair laws
• innovations would come from private persons, not
  the state
• proponent of free trade, free market
• comparative advantage
• individuals should be allowed to pursue their own
  self-interests
• termed laissez-faire from French expression
  laissez-faire la nature (let nature run its
  course)
• believed that like the law of gravity keeps
  planets in orbit the invisible hand of free
  market and competitive forces will balance out
  wealth for all
• thought himself a champion of the poor
• Natural laws of supply and demand
• Required the mutual interaction of the
  enlightened self-interest of millions of people

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Impact of Enlightenment