HIS 102 – Western
Civilization II
Lecture 3--Revolutions
in Thought
(The Age of Reason)
(Sir
Isaac Newton)
(Voltaire) 
I. Toward the French Revolution
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Two things would be needed for the French
Revolution to occur
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One was the bankruptcy of France as
a result of the Seven Years War and the American Revolution, which we have
already discussed
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The other was an atmosphere of critical
thought from the Scientific Revolution and a commitment to rational discussion
known as the Enlightenment
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Sometimes called the Age of Reason,
the Enlightenment was predicated on the Scientific Revolution which helped
create a faith in reason and facts (what humans could detect with their
senses), as opposed to mere authority
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Secular in orientation, the Enlightenment
was concerned with this world and how it works, rather than ultimate salvation
or damnation
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It showed an optimistic faith in progress
and accepted that happiness was attainable in this world
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It further demanded control over unrestrained
emotion, preferring what Kenneth Clark, the great art historian, called
the "smile of reason," rather than the grimace or the grin of Romanticism
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Enlightenment thinkers believed that
humanity could be improved in a variety of ways
II. The Scientific Revolution
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The Scientific Revolution (which lasted
from roughly 1500-1700) prepared the way for the Enlightenment
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It was made possible by strong nation
states which insured domestic political order and stability, so that time
could be spent for science instead of civil war
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Monarchs greatly increased their prestige
by financing scientific writers
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Wealth from commerce allowed even independent
merchant princes to dabble in science, collecting specimens and building
labs
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Moreover, new geographical discoveries
gave new information to explain
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Most important was the lack of fear
of the supernatural
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The witch craze had died out by the
mid-17th century
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This reflected the fact that the European
population was now increasingly living in cities where they were less reliant
on good weather and the lack of the soil's fertility
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thus, they no longer searched for scapegoats
in the population
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Inventions made the Scientific Revolution
possible
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New purity in glass making allowed better
telescopes and microscopes
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New developments in math, like decimals
and logarithms, as well as the slide rule, allowed calculation to proceed
more quickly, and calculus was now able to describe algebra in motion
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Scientific societies, such as the Royal
Society of England founded in 1662, helped spread that information
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Leaders of the Scientific Revolution
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Nicolai Copernicus (1473-1543)
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Discovered the sun was the center of
the solar system
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This discovery robbed humanity of its
traditional place at the center of the universe and created greate controversy
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Copernicus was condemned by the Inquisition
following his death
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Johann Kepler (1571-1630)
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Kepler formulated the three laws of
planetary motion
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this supported Copernicus' view that
planets revolved around the sun, not the Earth
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Gallileo Gallilei (1564-1642)
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Gallileo constructed the first telescope
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he used the telescope to confirm Copernicus'
theory about the sun as the center of the solar system
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Gallileo was brought before the Inquisition
where he recanted his support for Copernicus (and basically placed under
house arrest for the rest of his life)
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Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
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Bacon advocated the scientific method
of reasoning--called inductive reasoning
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This method called for observation of
a phenomenon, measurement of it and experimentation, creating a hypothesis,
and then verifying that hypothesis
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Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
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One of the great mathematicians of his
age
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Descartes applied mathematical methods
to explain the mysteries of the universe
Most famous for his quote, "I think,
therefore I am."A
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Sir Isaac Newton
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Newton is probably the symbol of the
age
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Building on the work of Copernicus,
Kepler and Galileo, he unified the new discoveries of the age into one
unifying principle of gravitation
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he also developed calculus to help prove
the new scientific theories
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this showed that celestial and terrestrial
motion were governed by a single theory which could be expressed in a mathematical
formula
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In 1687, Newton published many of his
theories in his masterwork Mathematica Principia
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This work (one of the most influential
books ever written) did much to reshape scientific thought for many generations
to come
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Its impace was felt not just in science,
but in many other fields of study as well
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The impact of the Scientific Revolution
outside of science
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Most important, the new developments
of the Scientific Revolution affected political thought
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If the universe could be understood
by men, it must also be able to understand and devise the best way to govern
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Hobbes was influenced greatly by the
orderliness that the new mathematics and scientific theories provided
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If the universe is like a machine governed
by laws, so must governments be
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Not surprisingly, this is the age of
constitution writing, as men tried to discover the laws governing political
arrangements and set them down, as Newton had done for gravity
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There was a contract between the people
and their God, who did not make apples fall upwards
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If God bound Himself by laws, so must
kings, for to do otherwise would be to set themselves above God.
III. The Englightenment
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The age of the Enlightenment began in
the late seventeenth century and continued through most of the eighteenth.
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The philosophes
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It was led by the philosophes, an informal
and unorganized group of critics, political reformers, and religious skeptics
in Europe and North America whose ideas touched on almost every element
of human existence.
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They often criticized and disagreed
with one another as much as they criticized and disagreed with the institutions
they sought to reform.
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Historian Peter Gay called them a family,
one that fought amongst one another, yet were bound by a common goal.
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The philosophes found unity in an ambitious
program to create a new worldview for Europe.
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Key goal of the philosophes
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In Gay's words, this program focused
most of all on freedom: "freedom in its many forms-freedom from arbitrary
power, freedom of speech, freedom of trade, freedom of aesthetic response,
freedom, in a word, of moral man to make his own way in the world."
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In 1784, Immanuel Kant argued, in an
essay entitled "What is Enlightenment," that the motto of the philosophes
was "Dare to know."
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In short, the philosophes sought to
create a worldview based on humanity's claim to be recognized as adult,
responsible beings, dependent on no one nor on any institution, whether
it be the church or the state.
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The philosophes believed there was a
moral sense in natural man
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The idea that the lot of humanity can
be improved drove the Enlightenment philosophes
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To improve humanity however, the new
social sciences had employ inductive and deductive reasoning, historical
research, anthropological methods, then compare and evaluate the information
they have developed
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Roots of the Enlightenment
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The roots of the Enlightenment lay in
the views about the natural world and humanity brought forth during the
Scientific Revolution.
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Newton and Locke
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The ideas of Isaac Newton and John Locke
provided a new framework for studying the world and the people in it.
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Newton
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Newton encouraged Europeans to examine
the workings of nature directly through experimentation and concrete evidence.
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His studies uncovered what seemed to
be rational laws of nature.
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Locke
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Locke applied Newton's ideas about experience
to understanding the human psyche and argued that human personalities developed
through experience.
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John Locke had denied innate ideas and
derived all knowledge, opinions and behavior from sensory experiences
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He claimed that each person entered
the world as a blank page, but as they grew older, their experiences shaped
their personalities.
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Thus, according to Locke, humans could
take charge of their own destiny and make ways to better their lives.
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At the same time Newton and Locke presented
their ideas to the world, on the continent of Europe, the philosophes were
using the concepts of natural laws and human improvability as the framework
for their notions on how to improve the human condition.
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Impact of the Glorious Revolution in
Britain
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At the same time, the philosophes drew
upon British politics and society as a model of a stable and tolerant system
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With a theoretical framework and a practical
model to work from, the philosophes needed a way to spread their message
to a wide audience.
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Impact of printing press
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Fortunately, the relatively new printing
press had become quite popular during the seventeenth century.
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The volume of printed works-books, magazines,
newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsides-rose dramatically throughout Europe
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The only thing that remained for the
reformers was to provide the messages they wanted to communicate.
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Beginning of the Enlightenment
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The beginning of the Enlightenment can
be identified as the period between the publication of Newton's Principia
Mathematica (1687) and the death of Louis XIV (1715).
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The first generation of Enlightenment
writers
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The first important writer in this generation
was Bernard de Fontenelle
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Fontenelle sought to make the new science
entertaining to a mass audience
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He, and other writers of his generation,
not only brought science to a wider group of people, but they also brought
it into conflict with organized religion
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Unlike Isaac Newton, who believed his
work paid tribute to God, Fontenelle and his fellow writers showed their
skepticism for any claims of absolute truth or divine authority
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Fontenelle frequently wrote about how
rational, forward-thinking scientists had to do battle with reactionary
priests
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Voltaire
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The foremost of these critics was Voltaire,
who challenged, usually indirectly, the Catholic Church and Christian religious
doctrine at every turn
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He particularly hated what he saw as
the fanaticism of organized religion, which he blamed for many savage and
inhuman acts.
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Although many devout Christians saw
Voltaire as a blasphemer, he was in fact a Deist
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The Philosophes
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The key to the philosophes' strength
lay in their numbers, organization, and above all, their dedication to
reform.
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The Encyclopedia
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This ideal was perhaps best realized
in a project begun by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert.
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These two men edited what became known
as The Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences,
the Arts, and the Crafts
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In what became a seventeen-volume work,
Diderot and d'Alembert set out to teach people how to think critically
and objectively about matters of all different types
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They praised the sciences and industrial
arts, questioned matters of religious faith, and openly criticized social
and political institutions for their intolerance, injustices, and outmoded
ways of operating
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Although censors frequently tried to
halt the Encyclopedia, it became widely read throughout France and western
Europe.
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Efforts at Reform
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Although the philosophes frequently
disagreed on the best ways to reform their world, often criticizing each
other as much as the institutions they wished to change, they continued
to work toward creating a new worldview
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Men such as the Baron de Montesquieu
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau challenged the political and social systems of
Europe
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David Hume and the Marquis de Condorcet
examined concepts of human progress and the ways in which experiences can
shape humanity
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In economics, Adam Smith rejected the
prevailing theory of mercantilism in favor of an economy based on individual
freedom of choice
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Madame du Chatelet and Benjamin Franklin
worked diligently to bring the new scientific ways to the forefront of
public attention
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The Methods of Reform
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There was great faith in the instrument
of reason rather than mere accumulation of knowledge
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We need to keep this in mind if we want
to understand the Enlightenment
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This faith in reason was based on Newton's
laws of nature--observation and experience replaced abstract ideas as the
point of departure for studies
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What placed the stamp on the Enlightenment
was this analytical method of Newtonian physics applied to the entire field
of thought and knowledge
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Order and regularity came from the analysis
of observed facts
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So pure analysis was applied to psychological
and social processes
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From here on out the doctrine of historical
and sociological determinism was generally accepted
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The new ideal of knowledge held by the
philosophes was simply a further development of 17th century logic and
science
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But there was a new emphasis on:
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the particular rather than the general
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observable facts rather than principles
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experience rather than rational speculation
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Except for David Hume's skepticism,
the philosophes' faith in reason remained unshaken
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Areas of Reform
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There were three major areas where the
philosophes sought reform--religion, economics, and politics
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Religion
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a central theme of the Enlightenment
was religion
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The writers of this generation continually
criticized the church (although often indirectly to avoid reprisals from
religious and political authorities) as being full of superstition and
backward, "barbarian" ways of thinking
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They also rejected the Christian idea
that humans were stained with original sin and therefore unable to create
a better life for themselves on earth
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Deism
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The Enlightenment was an age of reason
based on faith, not an age of faith based on reason
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Deism became quite popular with many
of the major Enlightenment figures
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It was a religious belief centered around
a God who had created the universe, set it to operating under a set of
distinct, orderly laws, and had then stepped aside to let it run
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The Deists often compared their view
of God to that of a clockmaker who, having once created a clock, then wound
it up and let it operate in an orderly fashion
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Deism was a logical outgrowth of scientific
inquiry, rational faith in humanity, and the study of comparative religion
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It emphasized an impersonal deity, natural
religion and the common morality of all human beings
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Deists believed that all religions could
be reduced to worship God and a commonsense moral code
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This idea of a rational, orderly God
fit very nicely with the ideas of the philosophes
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Although some of the reformers completely
rejected the notion of a God and became atheists and others remained steadfastly
loyal to the Christian church, the majority preferred the rationality of
Deism.
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In Europe, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
Thomas Paine led the deists
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In America, the deists were led by Franklin,
Jefferson, Madison, and Adams
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Still, a significant number of philosophes
rejected all religious beliefs and dogma
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To Diderot, d'Holbach and the encyclopedists
all religious dogma was absurd and obscure
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Diderot insisted on the free play of
reason
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But he was an unashamed pagan and believed
in a kind of pantheism or pan-psychism, not pure atheism or materialism
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He was humanistic, secular, modern and
scientific
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He expected from his method a regeneration
of mankind
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Voltaire disagreed with the atheists
and said their beliefs had a religioius dogma of its own
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David Hume (If time permits)
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It was David Hume, the Englishman, who
cut the ground from under his deist friends (Natural History of Religion).
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An empirical study of the nature of
man, said Hume, reveals not an identical set of motives but a confusion
of impulses, not an orderly cosmos but chaos.
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The elemental passion, hopes and fears
is the root of religious experience.
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Religions may be socially convenient
but being rooted in sentiment they lack the validity of scientific generalization
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To Hume, a rational religion is a contradiction
in terms
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It was the Enlightenment, not the Reformation
or the Renaissance that dislodged the religious establishment from central
control of cultural and intellectual life
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by liberating science from the restrictions
of theological tradition the Enlightenment rendered possible the changes
that led to modern culture
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Diderot stated, "if you forbid me to
speak on religion and government, I have nothing to say"
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Economics
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The assault on absolutism was fed by
middle class discontent, and took the form of an economic attack launched
by the physiocrats and a political one launched by the philosophes
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The middle class objected to the state
controlled economy of mercantilism, especially laws which controlled prices
and limited access to raw materials
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They wanted free enterprise instead
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Likewise, the middle class objected
to their lack of political power, since they had no influence at court
and could not vote
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They were further hurt by high taxation,
since it was easier to tax their sales than the property of aristocrats
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Finally, a full-fledged economic philosophy
emerged, developed by the physiocrats, to which the middle class gave their
support.
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The physiocrats
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The Physiocrats represent the economic
basis to the challenge to absolutism
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By changing to a more democratic economic
theory, they were in effect challenging absolute government
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Under mercantilism, the state and economy
were closely tied together and the economy served only to enrich the state
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by challenging mercantilism as they
did, the physiocrats in effect had challenged absolute government
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Physiocrats believed money should circulate
freely as blood does in the human body, a concept they learned from the
scientific revolution
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Physiocrats further argued that the
laws of supply and demand should regulate the economy without government
interference
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often called laissez-faire, this idea
that government should keep hands off the economy rejected the prevailing
ideas of mercantilism associated with absolutist states
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Adam Smith
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The most influential physiocrat was
Adam Smith, who argued that individuals motivated by self interest alone
would drive the economy forward, not the mercantilist state
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He challenged the idea of scarce goods
and resources which mercantilism was based on, substituting instead an
idea of the boundless expanse of resources
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In short, one got a bigger pie by letting
the pie grow, not by taking more pie from someone else
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Smith provided a comprehensive philosophy
to challenge mercantilism--which in effect meant an attack on absolutism
itself
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His new philosophy--Capitalism--did
not catch on immediately, but gradually became the dominant economic theory
of the Western world.
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Politics
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The philosophes did not discover natural
rights theory
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humans have certain natural (or inalienable
in the words of Thomas Jefferson) rights that cannot be denied them
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but they made it the foundation of the
ethical and social gospel
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They introduced natural rights into
practical politics
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They gave natural rights the dynamic
force which revealed its explosive energy in the French Revolution
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But their argument moved steadily away
from metaphysics toward empiricism--away from reason toward experience
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Liberty of the person, security of property
and freedom of discussion were less rooted in abstract reason than in commonsense
views of fundamental human needs, impulses and inclinations
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In spite of the utopianism of Rousseau,
the rest had a sense of reality
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Reason is still primary, but it is not
insurrectionary or bloodthirsty
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Only in society could man realize his
full potential (shades of Aristotle)
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They believed in the social function
of knowledge
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Except for Rousseau, none of the philosophes
agitated for a radical transformation of society
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All of them, like Voltaire, defended
enlightened absolutism.
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Montesquieu
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Montesquieu published his Spirit
of the Laws in 1748.
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He expressed here real hatred of despotism,
clericalism and slavery
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Being a member of the petit noblesse,
he called for an "intermediary corps" and fundamental laws to temper the
monarchy
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His former colleague magistrates called
it restitution of the ancient constitution
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Thus, he influenced both the aristocratic
reactionaries who wanted to revitalize feudal estates and parlements, and
the honest liberals who idealized English constitutionalism with its principle
of separation of powers, the basis of modern constitution-making
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Spirit of the Laws was the first
study in ideal sociological patterns
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He advocated the examination of a variety
of constitutional forms to discover the republic and its inner law
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A network of interacting forces, if
altered, affect the equilibrium of the whole structure--this becomes the
basis for the idea of a balance of powers in government (U.S. Constitution)
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Montesquieu is the founder of the typology
of constitutional patterns
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Jean Jacques Rousseau
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Rousseau rejected all compromise with
contemporary society
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He called for a moral reformation, a
revival of religion, and a purification of manners
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He passionately asserted the moral and
legal equality of man, the sovereignty of the people and the authority
of the general will
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He wanted a return to primitive simplicity
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While he realized that his "state of
nature" never existed, he asserted that self-knowledge was the source of
his proofs
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In two discourses he exposed his unlimited
personal individualism
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Yet in The Social Contract we
get the glorification of unlimited absolutism of the state
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Freedom for Rousseau is the submission
to the law which the individual has imposed on himself
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It is a voluntary consent to a necessary
law
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By entering this state, men gain the
enlargement of their perceptions and capacities.
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Political and intellectual freedom is
worthless for man, if he does not have moral freedom
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The function of the state is to bring
legal and moral equality about
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Rousseau believed that physical, intellectual
and economic equality are beyond human remedy
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The state, according to Rousseau can
interfere with property only if legal and moral equality is jeopardized
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In his book Emile he explains
that the young must learn the compulsion of things but be protected from
the tyranny of men
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All must obey the general will as a
law of nature, not as an alien command but because of necessity
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This is only possible if society makes
the laws which it obeys
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Hence a radical political and social
revolution was necessary
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Rousseau demanded man's mastery over
nature and projected a moral rationalism
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Without a doubt Rousseau wanted to lead
the French on the road to revolution
IV. Enlightened Despotism and
Revolution
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Debates over the best political system
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By the mid-eighteenth century, as the
Enlightenment reached maturity, the philosophes remained divided over which
system of government was best
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Voltaire and Diderot favored retaining
the power of the monarchs, so long as the monarchs used that power to create
rational political and economic systems and allowed intellectuals to think
and speak freely.
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Montesquieu based his model on the government
of Great Britain, claiming that a system which placed a series of checks
and balances on the power of the monarch would be best
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Rousseau was the most liberal, arguing
that democracies were the best systems to solve the problems of the day
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From this discord, two significant questions
arose
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The first question was whether the European
monarchs would even listen to the opinions put forth by the philosophes
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The second was, if the monarchs did
adopt any of the new ideas about government, which one would they choose
and to what extent would they use these proposals?
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To people living in the Western world
today, the idea of a ruler with absolute power being able to fulfill the
ideas of the enlightenment might seem absurd
-
However, keep in mind that the key changes
that the philosophes wanted were reform of the legal systems, curbing the
power of the church, and eliminating barriers to economic activity
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To men like Voltaire and Diderot, monarchs
who wielded absolute power seemed more likely to have the ability to carry
out such changes than any other system of government.
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The Enlightened Despots?
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Although Louis XV and Louis XVI of France
largely ignored the ideas of the philosophes, Enlightenment ideas prompted
some favorable reactions in several of the major nations of central and
Eastern Europe among a group of rulers that became known as "enlightened
despots."
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Prussia--Frederick the Great
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In Prussia, Frederick II, also known
as Frederick the Great, made efforts to rationalize agricultural and business
methods, to codify and simplify the Prussian legal system, and to improve
the conditions of peasants.
-
Although Frederick made some gains in
all three areas, long-standing traditions and the power of the nobility
prevented him from making significant progress
-
Austria--Maria Theresa and Joseph II
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Maria Theresa of Austria proved to have
better success than Frederick
-
During her forty-year rule (1740-1780),
she worked to consolidate and streamline the administration, military,
and financial affairs of the Austrian government
-
One of her major accomplishments was
reforming the tax system so that the monarch would have easier access to
the wealth of the Austrian people
-
She also created a new judicial system
and placed limits on the power that landlords had over their serfs
-
Still, Maria Theresa found herself unable
to modernize the Austrian economy and government completely due to the
resistance of Austria's upper nobility.
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Joseph II
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Her son, Joseph II, who ruled from 1780
to 1790, continued his mother's reforms and instituted some new ones.
-
He eventually abolished serfdom in all
the lands owned by the crown
-
He also began a program to increase
the literacy of the Austrian population, establish freedom of the press,
and even grant limited freedom of religion (the last two were reforms Maria
Theresa had strongly opposed)
-
Unfortunately, Joseph's harsh personality
and tendency to sometimes override the wishes of the nobility created a
backlash against his reforms
-
Some of them were overturned even before
his death.
-
Russia--Catherine the Great
-
Perhaps the ablest of the "enlightened
despots" was Catherine the Great of Russia
-
Born in Germany, Catherine had been
brought to Russia to marry Tsar Peter III
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After eight years of brutal treatment
at his hands, she orchestrated a coup in 1762 that saw Peter killed and
left her on the throne
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Catherine saw herself as a true follower
of the Enlightenment
-
She frequently corresponded with Voltaire
and acted as a patron to Diderot.
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Catherine's Reign
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As ruler, she worked to construct a
new legal system for Russia (although the new laws actually favored the
wealthy class at the expense of the serfs) and to bring a greater level
of literacy and education to the upper-class
-
To accomplish the latter goal, Catherine
licensed a number of private printing firms, as opposed to only allowing
publishing houses that were run by the government, that helped triple the
number of books available in Russia
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Her boldest reform was to secularlize
lands owned by the Russian Orthodox Church-a move that not even Peter the
Great had dared to take
-
But despite these measures, Catherine
remained in step with the other major powers of central and
eastern Europe to a large degree
-
Like the rulers of Prussia and Austria,
Catherine found she had to share power with a class of nobles and thus
had to accede to their wishes on many major issues
-
Her greatest failure to meet Enlightenment
ideals, as was the case of Frederick, Maria Theresa, and even Joseph II,
was her failure to improve the condition of the serfs living under her
rule
-
For the majority of the people in Russia,
Prussia, and Austria, living conditions actually declined rather than improved
during the rule of the "enlightened despots."
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An enlightened New World
-
The ideals of the Enlightenment reached
their pinnacle in lands controlled by a nation that many philosophes already
considered a model for other governments
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That nation was Great Britain
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British North American Colonies
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The British colonists in mainland North
America exercised most of the rights and liberties of citizens living in
England
-
However, beginning in the 1760s, many
British colonists in North America became dissatisfied with the way their
mother country was ruling them-particularly in the area of taxes
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This unrest grew until 1775, when thirteen
of the colonies rose up in rebellion and declared themselves to be an independent
nation known as the United States of America.
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The new United States Government
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Following their victory over the British
in 1783, the new states struggled to form a national government
-
In 1787, delegates from twelve of those
states met in Philadelphia and drafted a new governing document-the Constitution
of the United States-unique in the Western world at that time
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The Constitution, along with the amendments
that became known as the Bill of Rights, created a system of government
more in keeping with the ideals put forth by the philosophes
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The new system centered around a government
based on the concepts of checks and balances developed by Montesquieu
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It offered freedom of expression, an
end to internal economic barriers (although external tariffs remained),
freedom of religion that sharply curtailed the power of the church in secular
matters, and a legal system that promised equal justice under law
to everyone regardless of economic status.
-
Although the system did not always live
up to its promises and excluded significant numbers of the population (women
and African Americans-free as well as slaves) from participating, its liberties
and rights far exceeded those offered in Europe at the time.
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The forms of government, and the rights
granted to those who lived under them, spurred by the ideas of the Enlightenment
differed greatly
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The monarchs known as the "enlightened
despots" made some attempt to rationalize their governments but failed
to fully achieve most of the goals of the philosophes
-
The new government of the United States
held out the promise of fulfilling the ideals of the Enlightenment, but
in the late eighteenth century, it remained only a promise
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As the era of the Enlightenment drew
to a close in the latter part of the century, there remained the question
of how the ideas of the philosophes would affect the politics of France
-
The nation's rulers so far had remained
immune to the calls for change
-
However, tensions were growing inside
France among an educated middle-class that wanted a far greater say in
controlling the French political and economic system.
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During the last quarter of the eighteenth
century, those tensions would reach the boiling point and exploded into
the French Revolution.