ENLIGHTENMENT THEMES

• Scientific Revolution leading to Enlightenment

• Different views on government/social contract

• Views on religion

• Education

• Women

• Economics

• Enlightenment and America

• Enlightened despotism

HOW SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION LED TO ENLIGHTENMENT

• Science was accepted by educated elites and monarchs

• Scientific belief that human understanding should be used to understand world

• Criticism of accepted traditions and authorities (including religion)

• Reliance on empirical evidence to back scientific arguments.

• Isaac Newton

• Described universe as ordered, mechanical.

• Showed reason and nature were compatible.

ENLIGHTENMENT DEFINED

• Name

• Based on the belief that reason would get rid of ignorance and enlighten humans.

• Challenged authority

• Emphasized reason and individualism rather than tradition and authorities.

• Challenged church

• Skepticism and doubt about religious dogmas.

• Championed natural laws

• Nature, with its laws, order and simplicity, would guide human thought and society.

PEOPLE

ENLIGHTENMENT THINKERS IN A NUTSHELL (Alphabetical)

• Mary Astell (1666-1731)

• Wrote: A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694)

• Ideas: Women should be educated to ideas of new science - reason and debate, rather than tradition, questioned inequality of men's and women's roles

• Quote: "If All Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?"

• Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) (French Huguenot)

• Wrote: News from the Republic of Letters (1684), Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697)

• Ideas: Believed nothing can ever be known beyond all doubt (skepticism).Wrote list of religious beliefs that didn't stand up to reason. Believed morals and religion were separate.

• Cesare Beccaria (738-1794) (Italy)

• Wrote: Essay on Crimes and Punishment (1764)

• Ideas: Condemned torture and death penalty, barbarous punishments didn't deter crime.

• Emilie du Chatelet (1706-1749) (France)

• Wrote: Translated Newton's Principia Mathematica, Foundations of Physics, 1740Ideas: Voltaire's lover,

• John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) (Czech Republic)

• Wrote: The Gate of Tongues Unlocked, 1632

• Ideas: Innovations in methods of teaching, especially languages (Latin)

• Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) (France)

• Wrote: The Progress of the Human Mind (while hiding during Reign of Terror)

• Ideas: Condorcet method of tallying votes, Believed humans had progressed through nine stages of history, now with spread of science and reason, humans entering the tenth stage of perfection.

• Quote: "There is no limit to the perfecting of the powers of man; that human perfectibility is in reality indefinite, that the progress of this perfectibility has no other limit than the duration of the globe upon which nature has placed us."

• Deism

• ​"Clock makers theory," God created earth then left it alone.

• Denis Diderot (1713-1784) (France)

• Edited: Encyclopedia, 28 volumes, compendium of knowledge (1751-1772)

• Bernard de Fontenelle (1657-1757)

• Secretary of the French Royal Academy of science from 1691 to 1741

• Wrote: Plurality of Worlds -- a conversation between an aristocrat and her lover about the stars.

• David Hume (1711-1776) (England)

• Wrote: Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

• Ideas: Nothing (including God) could be known for sure, reality is only perception, religion = hope and fear.

• Thomas Jefferson (America)

• Wrote: Declaration of Independence (based on Locke)

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

• Wrote: Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

• Defined Enlightenment as "man's leaving his self-caused immaturity"

• Quote: "Dare to Know"

• John Locke (1632-1704) (England)

• Wrote: Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Second Treatise of Government 1690

• Ideas: Tabula Rasa, authority of govt. from consent of government, government's job is to protect life, liberty and property

• Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)

• Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) (France)

• Wrote: Persian Letters, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

• Ideas: Satire of French life, Admired England, Separation of powers, different governments suited different conditions (size, population, geography etc.)

• Thomas Paine (1737-1809) (America)

• Wrote: Common Sense (1776), Rights of Man (1791)

• Ideas: Believed colonist should separate from Britain,

• Physiocrats

• ​"Laissez faire, laissez passer," land/agriculture is a source of country's wealth

• Francois Quesnay (1694-1774)

• Ideas: Physiocrat, land was the only source of wealth, against mercantilism, one tax derived from land.

• Abbe Guillaume Raynal (1713-1796)

• Ideas: Critic of slavery, said it was irrational and inhumane, called for slave rebellion"

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) (Geneva, Switz.)

• Wrote: Origin of Inequality (1755), Emile (1762), Social Contract (1762)

• Ideas: Property corrupted society, children should be educated naturally (not women), individual rights not as important as the "general will"

• Quotes: "Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains"

• Salons

• ​Space where philosophes, artists, writers met, usually run by women

• Adam Smith (1723-1790)

• Wrote: The Wealth of Nations (1776)

• Ideas: Against mercantilism, "invisible hand," laissez-faire.

• Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) (Dutch Republic, Jewish)

• Wrote: Theological Political Treatise, 1670

• Ideas: Denied immortality of the soul, ostracized by Jewish community

• Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet) (1694-1778)

• Wrote: 92 volumes of works, Candide (1759), Letters on the English (1733), Treatise on Tolerance (1763)

• Ideas: Attacked superstition, religious persecution (defended Jean Calas) and uncritical optimism, believe in enlightened despotism, rule using authority to reform, deist, admired England.

• Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

• Wrote: Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

• Ideas: stressed need to educate women and against view that women weaker than men.

ENLIGHTENMENT THINKERS EXPANDED

John Locke (1632-1704)

• Applied scientific thinking to human psychology

• Wrote Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

• Tabula Rasa --

• ​Our brains at birth are blank slates (pl. tabulae rasae)

• We were not born with innate ideas

• All knowledge comes from sensory perception (that is, through touch, hearing, seeing etc. -- empiricism) as well as experiences and reason

• Therefore, schools should play big role in molding people from childhood

Philosophes

• French term for intellectuals of the Enlightenment (not exactly "philosophers")

• Came from noble and middle-class origins

• Wrote plays, histories, novels, encyclopedic entries and pamphlets.

• Promoted a "republic of letters"

• Common intellectual culture

• that crossed national boundaries

• And allowed intellectuals to freely exchange books and ideas.

• Met at private gathering (salons)

• Notable Philosophes:

• Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Kant, Hume, Benjamin Franklin

Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

• Wealthy judge in a French court

• Wrote Persian Letters (1721)

• Satirized customs, morals and practices of Europeans from view of two Persian travelers.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

• Personal information

• French author born Francois Arouet

• Imprisoned repeatedly in Bastille prison (France)

• Because he criticized the crown and fought with nobles.

• Protected by lover, Emilie du Chatelet (see below), and her husband

• When she died, he went to court of Prussian King Frederick II, then returned to France

• Prolific writer

• Wrote 90 volumes of drama, history, essays, letters and scientific treatises.

• Idealized England

• Admired individual and religious freedom in England and the political system.

• Home of Newton and Locke

• Wrote Letters concerning the English Nation (1733) criticizing French politics and religious intolerance.

• Wrote Candide (1759)

• Ridiculed nobility and clergy

• Criticized naive optimists who believed this is the best of all possible worlds and all things turn out for the best" (character: Pangloss)

• See below:

• Voltaire on Government

• Voltaire on the Church

Diderot (1713-1774) and the Encyclopedia

• Edited Encyclopedia with Jean d'Alembert.

• First volume, 1751, completed 1772

• Collaborative effort by many philosophes

• Who contributed articles

• Stated aims of the Encyclopedia (written in preface)

• "To contribute to the certitude and progress of human knowledge"

• Reason alone could be used to discover, understand or clarify almost anything

• Topics

• Exploring spectrum of knowledge from music, to machinery to philosophy

• Catholic church and government saw it as a direct threat to status quo.

• Attempts made to censor it or stop production.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

• Discourse on the Origins of Inequality of Mankind

• Said humans were once happily living in a primitive condition (a "state of nature") no laws, all people were equal

• Then a man enclosed a piece of ground and called it his own

• Once there was private property, people adopted laws and leaders --> everyone was in chains

• The Social Contract (1762) (see below)

• Agreement by society to be governed by the "general will."

• Everyone gave up their self-interest for the interest of the community.

• Even people who choose representatives to make decisions for them (for example, a parliament) are enslaved.

• Precursor to Socialism

• Emile (1762)

• Most important work on education.

• Written like a novel.

• Said education should encourage natural instincts through life experiences.

• emphasized emotion over reason (precursor to Romanticism)

• However, Rousseau sent all his own children to orphanage

• Character Emile's wife, Sophie, was only educated to be a skilled, obedient wife and mother

THEMES

WOMEN

Emilie du Chatelet (1706-1749)

• Voltaire's lover (although she had a husband)

• Spoke four languages and translated Greek and Latin texts.

• In 1733 joined a men's intellectual group

• Had to wear men's clothes so that management would admit her.

• Butt she was excluded from Royal Academy of Science because of her gender (used private tutors instead)

• Experimented in physics

• Published three-volume work on German mathematician Leibnitz

• Translated Newton's Principles of Mathematics.

• Died in childbirth in 1749

Mary Astell (1666-1731)

• Wrote: A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694)

• Ideas: Women should be educated to ideas of new science - reason and debate, rather than tradition, questioned inequality of men's and women's roles

• Quote: "If All Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?"

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

• Wrote: Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

• Ideas: stressed need to educate women and against view that women weaker than men.

Rousseau

• Believed women should not be educated

Salons

• Usually run by wealthy, aristocratic women

GOVERNMENT

Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651)

• Writing during the British Civil War, had a negative view of human nature

• Without a common power, he said, men were in constant conflict with each other

• The "life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"

• Therefore a strong central power was needed to protect men against other greedy men.

Locke (Two Treatises of Government, 1690)

• Writing after the 1688 Glorious Revolution

• Men were once in a state of nature and enjoyed "natural rights" (life, liberty and property)

• More stable than in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan

• But to safeguard these rights

• Individuals agreed to surrender certain amount of their sovereignty to government

• But the powers of the government (whether a monarchy or republic)

• Was strictly limited

• No government could violate individuals rights

• If it did, the people who set it up could and should overthrow it (as the English did in the Glorious Revolution)

• Eventually it became more convenient for people to form a government

• The role of that government was to protect natural rights to life, liberty and property.

• If government doesn't fulfill this, it should be overthrown.

Montesqueiu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

• Attempted to apply scientific method to politics to find "natural laws" governing social relationships of human beings.

• Political institutions should conform to the climate, customs, beliefs and economy of a particular country

• Limited monarchy -- appropriate for countries of moderate size (like France)

• Republic -- appropriate for smaller states (Venice, ancient Athens)

• Each form of government has its virtues and vices

• Separation of powers and checks and balances

• Could best secure limited sovereignty

• Otherwise tyranny could result

• See US government: executive, judicial and legislative branches

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract (1762)

• Built on John Locke’s work

• Offered a more radical political theory than Montesquieu’s

• In his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755)

• Rousseau argued that people in the “primitive” state of “noble savagery”

• Were free, equal and relatively happy.

• Only when some of them began marking off plots of ground

• Claiming them as their own

• And thereby founding civil society

• Did the troubles begin

• Private property

• Created inequality

• And the need for laws and governments to protect people from crime and wars

• In The Social Contract (1762)

• Rousseau began by challenging his contemporaries

• “Man is born free: and everywhere he is in chains”

• He then offered a solution

• To this conflict between individual freedom and social restrictions

• In an ideal state, he argued people entered into a compact with one another

• Agreeing to surrender their individual liberty – which was driven by self-interest, to the whole society

• Although government restricted individual freedom, it was a necessary evil.

• Rejected individualism

• stressed role of individual as a member of society.

• social contract was a contract in which the members of society agreed to be ruled by their genral will.

• General will would be exercised by a small group.

• Obedience to the genera will was an act of freedom.

• Didn't favor democracy

RELIGION

Events questioning religion:

• Geological discoveries suggested that life on Earth began earlier than biblical accounts claimed.

• Investigators began casting doubt on reports of miracles and prophecies.

Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)

• French Huguenot

• Forced to flee to Dutch Republic because of Louis XIV's religious persecutions

• Leading proponent of skepticism

• Wrote News from the Republic of Letters (1684)

• Attacked intolerance of the French monarchy and the Catholic Church

• Published Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697)

• Had list of religious beliefs that did not stand up to human reason and common sense.

• Said morals and religion were separate

David Hume (1711-1776)

• Scottish philosopher and historian

• Wrote Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1748) (see below)

• Insisted that nothing-not even the existence of God or our own existence - could be known for sure.

• Reality = only human perceptions

• established religions were based on nothing but hope and fear.

• Reason demanded people live with skeptical uncertainty rather than dogmatic faith.

Voltaire

• Voltaire educated by Jesuits - but denounced their religious doctrine

• Voltaire was a deist

• Wrote Philosophical Dictionary attacking churches and religion

• Wrote Treatise on Tolerance (1763)

• Criticized murder of Protestant merchant Jean Calas

• On false charges of murdering his son or threatening to convert to Catholicism.

• Said look on all men as brothers.

• "Ecrasez l'infame" -- Crush the infamous thing (the Church of Rome)

Deism

• Belief that an impersonal, infinite Divine being created the universe.

• But did not interfere with the world of human affairs

ECONOMICS

Physiocrats

• French economists

• Created first scientific system of economics

• Believed wealth of nations came from the value of land

• Believed agricultural products should be highly priced.

• Important physiocrats; Francois Quesnay (see below), Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (economic minister to Louis XVI 1774-1776), Marquis de Condorcet

Francois Quesnay (1694-1774)

• French medical doctor and economist from Physiocrat school

• Believed that the economy should be analyzed and studied - like the human body

• Not molded to suit the will of the king.

• Wrote Economic Table, 1758

• Provided ideas of the physiocrats

• Shows how the economy functions.

• Like other enlightenment thinkers, he saw economy following natural laws.

• Opposed government intervention in economy (against mercantilism) because it would corrupt the natural evolution of the economy

• and was the only source of wealth,

• one tax derived from land.

• And Le Despotisme de la Chine, 1767

• Praising constitutional Oriental Despotism

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

• British economist

• Wrote: The Wealth of Nations, 1776

• Ideas:

• Believed in laissez-faire, that is, the government should stay out of economic an allow the economy to operate naturally, as if it is directed by an "invisible hand."

• Prices, wages etc. will adjust according to supply-and-demand.

• Against mercantilism and guilds

• Because they obstruct free enterprise

• If one country can supply another country with cheaper product it's better to buy them than to make them.

• Labor

• Unlike physiocrats he believed tht labor (of farmers, artisans, merchant) was the true wealth of a nation.

• The ONLY role of government:

• To protect society from invasion (army, navy)

• Defend individuals from injustice and oppression

• And keep up public works (roads, canals etc.) that individuals could not afford

• Laid the foundation for 19th century economic liberalism (classical liberalism)

Comparison Physiocrats and Adam Smith

• Similarities

• Both believed that gold and silver were not the source of a natio's true wealthy (mercantilism)

• Both believed the stte should not interfered in economic matters

• Both believed int he existence of natural economic forces of supply and demand (laissez-faire)

• Differences

• Physiocrats believed that soil was the ource of a nation's wealth

• Smith believed that labor was the source of a nation's wealth

Rousseau

• Private property is the cause of all inequality

ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISM

• Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot etc.

• Didn’t think monarchy should be dismantled – but more enlightened

• Wanted change not through creation of republics but monarchs who initiated reform

• Voltaire's Definition of Enlightened Despot

• Should fight stupidity

• Support arts, sciences, education

• Keep clergy subordinate

• Allow freedoms

• Thought, religion, speech, press

• Uphold right to private property

• Embrace enlightened concept of social contract

• But not limit their power through a constitution

• Least Enlightened

• Louis XV and XVI

• Failed to reform

• Enlightened despots

• Trend after 1740

• ​Catherine the Great (1762-1796)

• Maria Theresa of Austria (1740-1780)

• Joseph II of Austria (1741-1790)

• Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1740-1786)

• All

• Read works of Enlightenment

• Some religious toleration

• Promoted and broadened access to education

• Claimed their power was for the good of their people

• Sponsored reforms to modernize

• Codification of laws

• Innovations in agriculture

• Wanted quick results

• Tended to make changes arbitrarily (without consistency)

• None became constitutional monarchs

Catherine the Great of Russia (1762-1796)

• Background

• Came from Germany (she was a foreigner)

• Married to Peter III whom she despised (had him deposed and killed)

• With Peter's death, she became czarina

• But depended on nobility for support (which limited the extent of her reforms)

• Law

• One of first acts was to call a meeting of delegates from every class except serfs

• To consider a codification of Russian law

• To prepare she read Montesquieu and Beccaria

• Delegates met 18 months, some codification accomplished, but not all

• Most important result: she learned about Russia

• Serfdom

• She had ambitions to reduce or reform serfdom

• But plans were stopped because of Pugachev’s Rebellion, 1773-1774

• 1000s of rebellious serfs killed people and proclaimed end to serfdom, taxation and military conscription, Pugachev caught, tortured and executed

• Landlords were given more authority than ever over the rural masses

• Personal Enlightenment

• ​Corresponded with Voltaire, Montesquieu and Diderot

• When Diderot needed money to get out of debt, Catherine bought his library then lent it to him.

• Educational reforms

• School for daughters of nobility

• And authorized first printing presses

• Supported arts

• Modernized along Western European standards

• Not enlightened

• Catherine did not grant rights to religious minorities in Russia

• Rejected idea of a social contract

• Biography

• Catherine was "expansionist' - took territory from Poland and Ottoman Turks

• Groomed grandson Alexander to succeed her.

Maria Theresa of Austria (1740-1780)

• Background

• Became queen in 1740

• Had to fight for her throne, War of Austrian Succession

• But she worked to centralize her power from Vienna.

• Magyars (Hungary) left alone

• Bohemians lost constitutional charter

• Local diets could now only "consent" to taxes imposed by central govt.

• Revealed weakness of hodgepodge kingdom

• Able advisers

• Local authority give to professional salaried employees of state

• Economy

• Established trade union and limited the power of guild monopolies

• The economy prospered, particularly in Bohemia

• Serfdom

• 1772 limited robot (labor that lords demanded from serfs) to three days a week/12 hours a day

• Passed laws to protect them from abuse

• Questionable to what degree these new regulations were enforced

• Religion

• Expelled Jesuits (despite her personal religious faith)

• Instituted some degree of religious toleration

• Punishment: Restricted use of torture

• Increased number of provinces from 20 to 50

Joseph II of Austria (1741-1790) (most enlightened)

• Background

• Shared power with his mother, Maria Theresa, until her death in 1780

• He grew impatient with her slow cautious ways

• From 1780-1790 he ruled on his own.

• Passed over 10,000 laws

• Acted quickly and arbitrarily

• Patron of arts

• Known as the “Musical King”

• Commissioned Beethoven to write a funeral cantata for him.

• Education

• To improve education, government provided teachers and texts for about ¼ of Austria’s children (high % at that time).

• Religion

• Granted Jews the right to worship

• but had to pay special tax for the privilege

• Protestants

• Given right to hold positions at court in Vienna

• Catholics

• Did away with what he viewed as wasteful

• Established many churches

• But reduced number of religious holidays

• Closed 1/3 of convents and monasteries

• Keeping the ones who educated youth or performed charity

• Medicine

• With money from confiscated church property, he supported hospitals

• Which began Vienna’s reputation as a center of medicine

• Serfs

• ​Passed Serfdom Patent in 1781 which essentially ended slavery

• Landlords could no longer punish serfs

• Serfs could independently choose spouses

• Serfs could choose careers

• Serfs could move between estates.

• Newly freed peasants found that freedom came with price - increased taxes

• Law

• Installed equal taxes and equal justice

• Punishments for crime were made less severe

• And capital punishment was abolished

• Social contract

• “Everything for the people, nothing by the people”

• Failures

• Joseph discovered that further reform in the countryside was impossible

• Because of strong resistance of the nobility.

• Joseph died in 1790 (age 49) disappointed and disillusioned

• Appreciated by neither nobility nor peasants

• Not able to delegate and had trained no successor

• Most of Joseph’s reforms were repealed immediately

• But some lasted.

• Leopold

• Joseph’s successor

• Ignored pleas of his sister Marie Antoinette in France in early days of revolution

• Austrian nobility did not get back all it power in the diets

• Which Joseph had taken away

• And peasants kept right to move marry and choose an occupation

• Died 2 years later

• His son Francis II not as wise as his father

• Austria at war with France

Fredrick the Great of Prussia (1740-1786)

• Background

• King of Prussia same time as Maria Theresa (1740)

• During War of Austrian Succession

• He took Silesia from Austria

• Personal Enlightenment

• Personal study and intellect

• Read, loved arts, played flute, wrote music

• Corresponded with Voltaire before becoming king

• Had Voltaire reside at his court at Potsdam for 2 years

• Promoted new farming techniques

• Social Contract

• Called himself “first servant of the state”

• Religion

• Was a deist who believed all religions were equally superstitious

• Said he would build a Mosque in the capital if Muslims wanted to move there

• Established religious toleration for all except Jews

• ​Considered Jews "useless to the state"

• Built a large Catholic church in Berlin

• Though Prussia was predominantly Lutheran

• Education: Improved and promoted education

• Law

• Simplified laws

• Abolished torture

• Created appellate courts

• Agriculture

• Scientific improvements to agriculture

• Improved agriculture by giving peasants tools, stock and seeds after the Seven Years War

• Drained swamps

• Introduced new crops

• Such as clover (a “nitrogen-fixing” plant) and potatoes

• Attempted to foster modern technological improvements

• Such as the iron plow, crop rotation

• Tried, unsuccessfully, to make Prussia grow its own tobacco

• Encouraged manufacturing

• Especially in textiles and metals (to benefit the army)

• Tried to force the country to be self-sufficient

• Heavily taxed imports, such as coffee

• Serfdom

• Abolished serfdom on his own estates

• But didn’t tamper with the social system at large

• He wanted to keep the landed aristocrats, the Junkers, as officers

• And the peasants as soldiers

• Thus education for peasants was limited to basic reading and writing

• Not enlightened

• Preferred that his Junker officers not marry

• Because he disliked paying widow’s pensions

• Bio

• Like Joseph of Austria, he trained no successors

• 20 years after his death

• Napoleon’s army easily conquered the country