"Man is born free but everywhere is in chains." Cogito, ergo sum Deism Progress Tolerance “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him” “Dare to Know”

The Eighteenth Century: An Age of Enlightenment

The Enlightenment u New ideas about the human potential for progress.

u Grew in part out of the Scientific Revolution Sir Isaac Newton 1702

u Became one of the foundations of the American and French Revolutions.

u Appealed primarily to middle and upper classes, particularly in urban areas.

Key Ideas of the Enlightenment u Scientific laws should be used to understand the world.

u Laws of human society and the physical world could be discerned through the scientific method u Humanity could progress.

Immanuel Kant u The German philosopher Immanuel Kant proclaimed the motto of the Enlightenment to be: “Dare to Know!”

The Popularization of Science

Bernard de Fontenelle u The scientist- philosopher Bernard de Fontenelle provides a link between the scientists of the 17th century and the philosophes of the Eighteenth century.

u The works of Fontenelle announced the Enlightenment by encouraging amateur conversations about scientific matters.

u He popularized the growing skepticism toward the claims of religion and portrayed churches as clear enemies of scientific progress.

u Fontenelle was best known for his Plurality of Worlds, which popularized the new ideas of a mechanistic universe and clearly showed a woman’s interest in scientific discourse.

The Rise of Skepticism u Questioning the Church’s dogma concerning the physical world led to skepticism regarding all aspects of Church authority.

Pierre Bayle u Pierre Bayle exemplified the new skepticism about religious explanations of anything.

u Bayle's Historical and Critical Dictionary is a work demonstrating the author's conviction that new rational principles of textual criticism should be applied to all types of writing including the Bible.

The Impact of Travel Literature u A key new type of enlightened writing fueling skepticism about the "truths" of Christianity and European society were travel reports and comparative studies of old and new world cultures.

u What had been seen as practices grounded in reason were seen to be matters of custom and traditions. u Cultural Relativism was accompanied by religious skepticism.

The Legacy of Newton and Locke

u Isaac Newton and John Locke provided inspiration for the Enlightenment by arguing that through rational reasoning and the acquisition of knowledge natural laws governing human society could be discovered.

John Locke ( ) u English philosopher, who founded the school of empiricism. u Locke gave Bacon’s empiricism systematic expression in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).

u Locke's empiricism emphasizes the importance of the experience of the senses in pursuit of knowledge rather than intuitive speculation or deduction.

"No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience." (Locke.) u He regarded the mind of a person at birth as a tabula rasa, a blank slate upon which experience imprinted knowledge, and did not believe in intuition or theories of innate conceptions.

 Locke also held that all persons are born good, independent, and equal.

Locke’s Political Theories u He argued that government should be based on the consent of the governed.

u There was a contract between governments and the governed.

The Philosophes u Philosophers who questioned the human condition.

u They saw themselves as the heir to the philosophers of antiquity and the Renaissance Humanists.

u They advocated reform through the acquisition of knowledge by scientific methods.

u They believed in the perfection of human institutions through reason.

u The French philosophes included people mainly from the nobility and the middle class. Jean Huber La Sainte Cène du Patriarche (c.1772)

ParisParis u The recognized capital of the Enlightenment was Paris, but the movement was international.

Baron de Montesquieu ( ) u Charles Louis de Secondat was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1689 to a wealthy family.

u He was a member of the Bordeaux and French Academies of Science and studied the laws and customs and governments of the countries of Europe.

u He gained fame in 1721 with his Persian Letters, which criticized the lifestyle and liberties of the wealthy French as well as the church.

L’Esprit des Loix u Montesquieu's book On the Spirit of Laws, published in 1748, was his most famous work. u It outlined his ideas on how government would work best.

u Montesquieu believed that a government that was elected by the people was the best form of government, but that geography and environment determine the form.

u Montesquieu argued that the best government would be one in which power was balanced among three groups of officials.

u He thought England - which divided power between the king (who enforced laws), Parliament (which made laws), and the judges of the English courts (who interpreted laws) - was a good model of this.

u Montesquieu called the idea of dividing government power into three branches the "separation of powers."

u He thought it most important to create separate branches of government with equal but different powers.

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu u "When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty."

u His ideas about separation of powers became the basis for the United States Constitution.

Voltaire ( ) u Voltaire was born François Marie Arouet in Paris, November 21, 1694, the son of a notary. u He was educated by the Jesuits at the College Louis-le-Grand.

u Voltaire chose literature as a career. u He began moving in aristocratic circles and soon became known in Paris salons as a brilliant and sarcastic wit.

u A number of his writings resulted in his imprisonment in the Bastille. u While in prison he began writing plays, which were widely acclaimed.

u A quarrel with a member of an illustrious French family, the chevalier de Rohan, resulted in Voltaire's promise to quit France and proceed to England. u Accordingly he spent about two years in London.

u In Voltaire's Philosophic Letters to the English he expressed deep admiration for the English love of freedom, tolerance, and commercial excellence.

u He spent time at the the court of Louis XV and became a member of the French Academy. u After a brief sojourn at the Prussian court he settled at Ferney near the Swiss border and devoted the rest of his life to writing.

u His morality was founded on a belief in freedom of thought and respect for all individuals, and he maintained that literature should be useful and concerned with the problems of the day.

u During his later life, Voltaire became increasingly critical of religious intolerance

“écrasons l'infâme” u The flavor of Voltaire's activities could be summarized in the phrase he often used: écrasons l'infâme ("let us crush the infamous one").

u he referred to any form of religion that persecutes non-adherents or that constitutes fanaticism.

u For Christianity he would substitute deism, a purely rational religion.

DeismDeism u Deism was based on the Newtonian world-machine with God as its benevolent mechanic, designing the universe in accord with rational laws.

u His most famous work is perhaps Candide, in which Voltaire analyzes the problem of evil in the world, depicts the woes heaped upon the world in the name of religion.

Diderot, Denis ( ), u French Encyclopedist and philosopher, who also wrote novels, essays, plays, and art and literary criticism.

u Diderot was born in Langres on October 5, 1713, and educated by Jesuits. Portrait by Fragonard

u His first serious work was Pensées philosophiques (1746), which stated his deist philosophy.

u He was the most versatile of all the philosophes, as exemplified by the various types of provocative literature he wrote.

u In 1747 he was invited to edit a French translation of the English Cyclopaedia by Ephraim Chambers.

EncyclopediaEncyclopedia u Diderot converted the project into a vast, new, and controversial 28- volume Encyclopedia compiling articles by many influential philosophes.

u The skeptical, rationalist Diderot used the Encyclopedia as a powerful propaganda weapon against Ecclesiastical authority and the superstition, conservatism, and semi- feudal social forms of the time.

u He renounced chastity and the narrow Christian definitions of acceptable sexual relations and expressions of love.

u Consequently, Diderot and his associates became the objects of clerical and royal antagonism.

The New “Science of Man” u The belief in natural laws underlying all areas of human life led to the emergence of the social sciences.

David Hume u David Hume ( ), a Scottish historian and philosopher, who influenced the development of skepticism and empiricism, two schools of philosophy.

u Born in Edinburgh on May 7, 1711, Hume was educated at home and at the University of Edinburgh, at which he matriculated at the age of 12.

u His most important philosophical work, A Treatise of Human Nature, published in 1739, embodies the essence of his thinking. u His work encouraged the belief in the possibility of a science of man.

u In a revolutionary step in philosophy, Hume rejected the basic idea of causation, maintaining that “reason can never show us the connection of one object with another.”

u Hume denied the existence of the individual self, maintaining that because people do not have a constant perception of themselves as distinct entities, they “are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions.”

u As a historian Hume broke away from the traditional chronological account and attempted to describe the economic and intellectual forces that played a part in history. u His History of England was regarded as a classic for many years.

u Hume's contributions to economic theory included his belief that wealth depends not on money but on commodities and his recognition of the effect of social conditions on economics.

 These ideas influenced the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith and later economists.

The Physiocrats u A school of French thinkers who sought to create the first complete system of economics. u They were also referred to simply as “the economists” or “the sect.”

u The founder and leader of physiocracy was François Quesnay.

First Axiom u all wealth originated with the land and that agriculture alone could increase and multiply wealth. u Industry and commerce were basically sterile and could not add to the wealth created by the land.

Second Axiom u only abundance combined with high prices could create prosperity. u This could be obtained only if the “economic law,” which the physiocrats envisaged as being as immutable as the law of gravity, was allowed to act untrammeled.

Laissez-faireLaissez-faire u Absolute freedom of trade was necessary to stabilize prices at a fair level, and laissez faire was to restore the economic process to its natural course, from which all further benefits would flow.

Adam Smith ( ) u British economist, whose treatise An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was the first serious attempt to study the nature of capital and the historical development of industry and commerce.

u He espoused three basic principals of economics in his attack on the economic system of Mercantilism.

First Principal u Nations should not rely on protective tariffs - each nation should produce what it does best without artificial barriers.

Second Principal u The labor theory of value - he claimed that gold and silver were not the source of a nation’s wealth - labor was.

Third Principal u Capital is best employed under conditions of governmental noninterference, or laissez-faire, and free trade.

laissez-fairelaissez-faire u the production and exchange of goods can be stimulated only through the efficient operations of private industrial and commercial entrepreneurs acting with a minimum of regulation and control by governments.

The Invisible Hand u To explain this concept of government maintaining a laissez- faire attitude toward commercial endeavors, Smith proclaimed the principle of the “invisible hand.”

The Invisible Hand u Every individual in pursuing his or her own good is led, as if by an invisible hand, to achieve the best good for all.

u Therefore any interference with free competition by government is almost certain to be injurious.

The Function of Government u According to Smith, government only has three functions: 1. Protect society from invasion (Army) 2. Defend individuals (Police) 3. Provide certain public works.

The Later Enlightenment

Baron Paul d’Holbach u Reached an extreme degree of atheism in his work System of Nature (1770) in which he said that men were machines and God, as a mere product of the human mind, was unnecessary for leading a moral life.

Marie-Jean de Condorcet u In his work The progress of the Human Mind he expressed the idea that human perfectibility is limitless.

Jean Jacques Rousseau u Jean Jacques Rousseau ( ), French philosopher, social and political theorist, musician, botanist, and one of the most eloquent writers of the Age of Enlightenment.

Jean Jacques Rousseau “man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains”

u In his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality of Mankind he says that private property was the source of inequality and the chief cause of crimes.

u In The Social Contract, he expressed his belief that government was a necessary evil and that freedom is achieved by being forced to follow the "general will.”

u Rousseau's influential novel, Emile, deals with the key Enlightenment themes of proper child rearing and human education.

u He believed that young children should be allowed to encounter nature directly and learn by experience - thus fostering a child’s natural instincts.

u This emphasis on the heart and sentiment over reason had a direct impact on the intellectual movement called Romanticism.

Women in the Enlightenment

Mary Astell u The first self- avowed feminist writer in English.

u Author of 2 great feminist works, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1697) and Some Reflections Upon Marriage (1700).

u Daughter of a Newcastle coal merchant, Astell never married and was supported throughout her life by a series of wealthy female friends.

If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?— Mary Astell, Some Reflections on Marriage u Although she wrote anonymously, her authorship was widely known.

Mary Wollstonecraft ( ) u English author and feminist, probably born in London.

u She became a member of an intellectual group that included the English poet and artist William Blake, the Anglo-American political philosopher Thomas Paine, and the English chemist Joseph Priestly.

u Her best-known work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), asserts that intellectual companionship is the ideal of marriage and pleads for equality of education and opportunity between the sexes.

 Her daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft, became the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley and a writer on her own (Frankenstein).

The Salons of Paris u Women played an important role in the Enlightenment as hosts of gatherings of thinkers and artists called Salons.

u The salons were usually run by women but for male guests. Madame de Pompadour

u They gave social mobility to both men and women and provided a forum for the serious discussion of the ideas of the philosophes.

Et in Arcadia Ego