Transcript 18th Century Enlightenment

Please respond to the
following:
• Do you want to change the world?
• Do you want the world to change?
• How much is your knowledge worth
to you? To society?
Denis Diderot
The Encyclopedia or Reasoned Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and
Trades (1751-1772)
“The purpose of our knowledge is make it
known to the men among whom we live, and to
transmit it to those who will come after us, in
order that the labors of the past ages may be
useful to the ages to come, that our grandsons,
as they become better educated, may at the
same time become more virtuous and more
happy, and that we may not die without having
deserved well of the human race…”
18th Century Enlightenment
“What is the Enlightenment?”
The Levee of
Voltaire
(1759)
What is the Enlightenment?
• Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804)
– Sapere Aude; “Dare to know.”
• Cast off the ideas of the past that had been
accepted because of tradition or intellectual
laziness.
• Use one’s reason to probe for answers to
questions on the nature of mankind.
• The reward: FREEDOM
• Freedom in politics and religion
“Something to Think About”
• D’Alembert
“Barbarism lasts for centuries; it seems
that it is our natural element; reason
and good taste are only passing.”
An Overview of the 18th
Century
• Political History - Reform
• Intellectual History - Influenced by Newton and Locke
• Religious-New ideas about the existence of God and
the practices of religion (rationalism and religion)
• Social History - Increased Literacy among the Middle
Class and was considered the new age of culture.
Encouraged Individualism.
• Economic History - Mercantilism to Capitalism
• Technology-Industrial Revolution
Formative Influences
• Ideas of Newton and Locke
– Newton
• Laws of gravitation exemplified the power of the human
mind.
• Insisted on empiricism.
• Rationality in the physical world.
– His ideas influenced philsophes about society
• If nature was rational, society should be organized
rationally.
Formative Influences
• Locke
– Explained human psychology in terms of
experience.
• (1690) Essay Concerning Human Understanding
• All humans enter the world with a tabula rasa
• Human nature is changeable and can be molded by
modifying the surrounding physical and social
environment.
• It is possible to improve the human condition.
• Human beings could take charge of their own destiny.
Formative Influences
• Great Britain (Provided the model)
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Domestic stability after 1688
Religious toleration (except Catholics)
Freedom of Press
Free Speech
Monarch’s authority limited-Parliament’s sovereignty.
Court’s protected its citizens (English Bill of Rights)
Less economic regulation (Entrepreneurship and Industry)
Liberal ideas produced prosperity and stability.
Formative Influences
• France (Provided the desire to reform)
– Absence of religious toleration
– Possibility of arbitrary arrest
– Mercantile economy (too much control)
– Military control of France’s political and
social life.
Political Overview of the 18th
Century
• England - Constitutionalism
• France - Royal Absolutism
• Eastern Europe (Prussia, Russia,
Austria) - Enlightened Despotism
• Ottoman Empire - Traditional Empire
“A coffee house is like a political stock
exchange, where the most gallant and wittiest
heads of every estate come together. They
engage in wide-ranging and edifying [moral or
intellectual improvement] talk, issue wellfounded judgment on matters concerning the
political and the scholarly world, converse
sagaciously [good judgment] about the most
secret news from all courts and states, and
unveil the most hidden truths”
(1743) Germany
A Parisian Salon
Madame Geoffrin’s Salon
Print Culture
• First major intellectual movement of European
History to flourish in a print culture (books, journals,
newspapers, and pamphlets).
• Novels emerged as a distinct genre.
• Print subjects included secular concerns and ideas
as opposed to religious issues.
• Libraries became popular.
• Mostly read by middle-class and the aristocracy.
• Writing became a lucrative occupation, for some.
Print Culture
• High
– Successful authors who wrote for monarchs, nobles, upper
middle class, and professional groups.
• Low
– Those who could not
– Grew resentful and their writing was often radical
empowering the lower classes.
• Public opinion created-growing literate society who supported
authors both high and low.
• Governments could no longer operate secretly
– Censorship, Confiscations, and imprisonment became the political
tool against criticism.
Industrial Revolution
Mercantilism to Capitalism
Spinning
Jenny
Flying Shuttle
John Kay
1733
James
Hargreaves
1764
The Water
Frame
Thomas
NewcomenJames Watt
Richard
Arkwright
1769
Steam
Engine 1702,
1763
Centers of the Enlightenment
Peter Gay said;
• The philosophe’s goal;
– Freedom from arbitrary power
– Freedom of speech
– Freedom of trade
– Freedom to realize one’s talents
– Freedom from aesthetic response
– Freedom of moral man to make his way in
the world
Who?
• Philosophes
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Thinkers of the age
Not organized in any formal group
Often compared to a family
Met at Salons: Usually the homes of wealthy noble
women.
– Chief bond-Common desire to reform religion,
political thought, society, government, and the
economy.
– All for the sake of human liberty
Review Question 2
• Why did the philosophes consider organized
religion to be their greatest enemy?
• How did Jewish writers contribute to
Enlightenment thinking about religion?
• What are the similarities and differences
between the Enlightenment evaluation of
Islam and its evaluations of Christianity and
Judaism?
Is There a God?
Yes!
• The Enlightenment and Religion
– Some philosophes:
• claimed that the churches hindered the pursuit of a
rational life and the scientific study of humanity and
nature.
• claimed church doctrine promoted intolerance and
bigotry, inciting torture, war, and other forms of human
suffering. (Voltaire’s defense of Jean Calas)
• Beliefs may have kept some philosophes from
participating directly in politics and made some targets of
censorship.
Deism
• Some did not oppose all religion
• Considered this belief to be faith without
fanaticism and intolerance.
• A belief that substituted human reason
for the authority of churches.
• If nature was rational so was God, who
created nature.
Early Deists and their work
• Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) by John
Toland
– General Deist belief-religion is natural and rational
rather than supernatural and mystical.
– God is a Divine Watchmaker-created the
mechanism of nature, set it in motion, and then
departed.
– Did believe in God
– Did believe in life after death, where punishments
and rewards would be given based on a person’s
life.
Other Religions
• Jewish Thinkers
– Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) earlier than the
Enlightenment
• Secularized Judaism
• Influenced by the new science, he tried to change
traditional thinking with the new “rationality”.
• Ethics: He closely identified God and nature, or the
spiritual and material worlds. Criticized for putting God
and nature into a single divine substance.
• Theologico-Political Treatises (1690) described the
origins of religion in naturalistic terms.
• Shunned because he was a Jewish scholar who
attempted to secularize his religion.
Deism gave some hope.
• Acceptance of their faith would:
– End rivalries among Christian sects
– End religious fanaticism, conflict, and
persecution.
– Prove there was no need for clergy, who
perpetuated the above.
– Secular ideas were as important as faith.
Other Religions
• Jewish Thinkers:
– Moses Mendelsohn (1729-1786)
• “Jewish Socrates”
• Advocated the assimilation of Jews into modern European
society while maintaining the religious distinction of Jewish
communities and religious practices.
• Religious diversity within a nation did not harm loyalty to the
government; therefore governments should be religiously
neutral and all should enjoy the same civil rights.
• The Jewish community must also be tolerant of other religions.
• Avoid excommunication and embrace modern secular ideas.
Islam in Enlightenment
Thought
• Europeans of the 18th century knew very little
of the Islamic world.
• Islamic religion was understood through
books and the commentary of Christian
missionaries and travelers.
• Most information was hostile, deeply
misunderstood, and rivaled Christianity.
• Portrayed as a false religion.
• Muhammed-was seen as divine and not as a
human prophet-considered blasphamy.
Islam in Enlightenment
Thought
• Intellectually
– Voltaire’s view:
• Agreed with the religious critics
• Too Fanatic
– John Touland’s view:
• Opposed prejudice
• Islam derived from early Christian writings and was thus a form
of Christianity.
• Deeply offended his contemporaries.
– Montesquieu’s view:
• Islam was passive and subject to despotism
• Prevented the Ottoman Empire from maintaining a strong
position with other European countries.
Islam in Enlightenment
Thought
• Positive View
– Lady Mary Wortley (1689-1762)
• Lived in Turkey; husband was Britain’s Turkish
Ambassador
– Turkish Embassy Letters
• Urged the west to copy many of the Turkish practices
(medicine, woman’s rights, architecture and style)
• Criticized western European scholars for their
misinterpretations of Islamic culture
The Encyclopedia
• Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784)
• Jean Le Ron d’Alembert (1717 - 1783)
• Appeared in 1751, completed 1772
– Attempts were made to censor it.
– Collective effort of more than one hundred authors
(some of the work included articles from the great
philosophes)
– Many ideas had to be hidden behind in obscure
articles or under the cover of irony.
– Designed to secularize learning and escape the
intellectualism of the Middle Ages and
Reformation
Diderot’s Encyclopedia
Voltaire (1694 - 1778)
• Most influential
• 1720s-left France after offending the
French government and went to The
Netherlands and England
• Observation of England
– Tolerance for religion and intellectualism
– Freedom and moderate political climate
– Science and economic prosperity
Voltaire
• 1733 - Letters on the English
– Praised the virtue of the English and criticized the
abuses of French Society
• 1759 - Candide
– His most famous satire in which he attacked war,
religious persecution, and unwarranted optimism
about the human condition.
• 1738 - Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
• Popularized the thoughts of Isaac Newton
Voltaire’s Thoughts
► Please interpret the following:
► “Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t
do.”
► “It is dangerous to be right when the
government is wrong.”
► “Judge a man by his questions rather than his
answers.”
► “Prejudice is opinion without judgment.”
► “I may not agree with what you say, but I will
defend to the death your right to say it.”
► “Crush the Infamous Thing,”
Ideas to Improve the Human
Condition
• Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)
– Reform of Criminal Law
• 1764 Crimes and Punishment
– Analyzed the idea of making punishment both effective and
just.
– Laws should be positive-conform with the laws of nature.
– Attacked both torture and capital punishment
– Ensure speedy trial and punishments that deter crime
– Law is utilitarian-greatest good/happiness for the greatest
number.
Enlightened Philosophes
Adam Smith 1723-1790
Ideas to improve the economy
• Adam Smith (1723-1790)
– 1776 Wealth of Nations and Causes of the Wealth
of Nations.
• Division of labor
• Restrict monopolies
• Laissez-faire Principle
• Invisible-hand concept
• Abundant resources
Ideas to improve the economy
• Adam Smith
– Four Stage Theory
• Classification of humans (Barbarism to Civilization)
– Hunting and gathering-not settled
– Pastoral or Herding-somewhat settled but beginning of
private property.
– Agricultural-settled-clear cut property arrangements
– Commercial-Advanced-production, consumption, trade,
based on elaborate forms of property and financial
arrangements. Highest level of human achievement
Montesquieu 1689-1755
Improve Politics-Checks and
Balances
• Montesquieu (1689-1755)
– Spirit of the Laws (1748)
• British constitutional government was the model.
• No single set of political laws could apply to all people at all
times.
• The best form of government depended on their size,
population, climate, and traditions.
• All levels of government MUST respect the other levels of
government.
• These levels must represent the various levels of the general
population and public opinion.
• Authority must be divided:
– Legislative-Parliament, Judicial-Courts, Executive-King
Jean Jacques Rousseau
1713-1778
“What is the good life?”
Rousseau
• Background
• Early work and ideas
– What constitutes the good life?
• Relationship with other philosophes
• The Social Contract
– “All men are born free, but everywhere they are in
chains”
• The General Will
• Ideas about women
Montesquieu v. Rousseau
Rousseau vs. Smith
Rousseau vs. Wollstonecraft
Enlightened Despots
Enlightened Absolutism
• Define enlightened absolutism.
• Develop a group statement that
identifies the MOST and LEAST
enlightened monarch of the time.
Provide specific examples to support
your decision.