1. The Enlightenment

2. Causes & Characteristics
Influence of Newton and Locke
Newton – world machine
Locke – Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
Tabula rasa
Deism
Cultural relativism

3. Causes & Characteristics
The emergence of a secular worldview for the 1st time in human history
Science and reason could explain all aspects of life
Growing skepticism toward religion

4. The Philosophes & their Ideas

5. Who were the philosophes?
Not all French, or philosophers
Goals
Role of salons

6. Baron de Montesquieu (1689 – 1755)
French noble, hated absolutism of Louis XIV
Criticized the Catholic church & French monarchy
Spirit of the Laws (1748)

7. Voltaire (1694 – 1778) French philosopher and author
Challenged Catholic theology
Advocated “enlightened despotism”
Impact

8. Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784) French writer and philospher
Encyclopedia (1765)
Attacked Christianity – “the most absurd and the most atrocious in its dogma”

9. David Hume (1711 – 1776) Scottish philosopher and writer
Treatise on Human Nature
Human reason cannot go farther than the senses

10. Economic Ideas Physiocrats Francois Quesnay (1694 – 1774)
Land was the only form of wealth
Laissez faire, not mercantilist policies, were best

11. Economic Ideas Adam Smith (1723 – 1790) Wealth of Nations (1776)
Supply & demand
No government regulation of economy
Labor was the true source of wealth
Foundation for economic liberalism & modern capitalism

12. Later Enlightenment Became more radical
Baron Paul d’ Holbach (1723 – 1789)
Marie-Jean de Condorcet (1743 – 1794)

13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778)
Social Contract (1762)
General will
“All men are born free and everywhere they are in chains”
Emile (1762)
Novel that was a treatise on education
Children should learn by doing

14. Women in the Enlightenment
Emphasis on biological differences
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 – 1797)
Vindication of Rights of Women (1792)

15. Classical Liberalism
Belief in the individual and equality before the law
“Natural rights” philosophy played a significant role in American & French Revolutions
American and French founding documents reflect Enlightenment ideas

16. Christian Opposition German pietism Methodism Jansenism
Need for conversion & spiritual experience
Methodism
John Wesley (1703 – 1791)
Jansenism
Catholic dissenters