Dr. Vess's World Civilization Virtual Library

The Enlightenment

objectives:

1. Be able to discuss the work of several Enlightenment philosophes, summarizing their major characteristics and ideas.

2. Be able to explain why the Enlightenment was an outgrowth of the Scientific Revolution.

3. Be able to discuss the ideas of the philosophes on religion and how these ideas impacted the treatment of organized religion in France during the French Revolution.

4. Be able to discuss the philosophes's view of human nature and the impact of this view on penal reform, education and politics.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

The Enlightenment grew out of the Scientific Revolution. The new mathematics and Newton's view of the mechanical universe of necessity brought about new ways of approaching religion and politics. Morality, ethics, theology and politics must all be based on the laws of nature, and, therefore, the enlightened philosophes found much to criticize. While Newton was a deeply religious man, his reforms inspired many philosophes, like Voltaire and Diderot, to reject the role of God entirely and urge a new toleration for different beliefs. What could not be decisively proven, must be rejected, and religion was seen as superstition and fanaticism. In politics, enlightened thought eventually brought about the downfall of the French monarchy and the Old Regime. The Laws of nature dictated a more democratic approach, the french revolutionaries, inspired by the philosophes, abolished the monarchy and set up a new constitution which was based on an enlightened understanding of nature. The Enlightenment is one of the best examples of the power of thought, where words and intellectual currents were not divorced from reality, but a moving factor in one of the most violent revolutions of all time, a revolution fought in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity.

Famous Quotations:

Voltaire:

It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

Voltaire, Zadig

If this is the best of all possible worlds, what then are the others?

Voltaire, Candide

We must cultivate our gardens. Ibid.

Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing (superstition).."

Letter to d'Alembert," November 1762

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. November, 1770

Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.

Essay on Epic Poetry

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it! attributed to Voltaire

One feels like crawling on all fours after reading your work. Letter to Rousseau, 1761

Diderot:

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.

Diderot, Essay on the Merit of Virtue

Hume:

Opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a-quarreling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

Hume, The Natural History of Religion

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.

Hume, Of Miracles

Rousseau:

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said, "this is mine," and found people na‹ve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its own destruction. Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves. Rousseau, The Social Contract

The prince is the first servant of his state.

Frederick the Great, Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg

I am tired of ruling over slaves.

The Last Words of Frederick the Great

OUTLINE

I. The Glorification of Reason

A. Kant -- "What is Enlightenment?"

critical thought vs. acceptance of preconceived ideas the "public use of reason"

II. Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet -- 1694-1778)

A. His Life

B. The Philosophical Dictionary fanaticism and superstition view of religion

C. Candide -- attack on received views of the age

III. Thomas Paine and the Age of Reason his view of the worth of religion

IV. Diderot's Encyclopedia tolerance vs. fanaticism

V. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire the pernicious influence of Christianity

VI. Condorcet's "The Infinite Perfectibility of Man" progress is possible

VII. Music in the Enlightenment: The century of musical genius: Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven

VII. Social and Political Reform in the Enlightenment A. Beccaria and penal reform

B. Rousseau's Social Contract C. Montesquieu's Laws

D. the critique of slavery:

E. Women's rights: Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women; try here too.

F. The Enlightened Despots:

applications of "enlightened" and "despotic" to the European rulers of the Enlightenment

i. Austria Maria Teresa: the centralization of government Joseph

II: religious toleration for Jews and civil rights reforms for serfs

ii. Catherine the Great of Russia her love of enlightened thought:

a. Voltaire and Diderot her early move toward reform

b. the Pugachev rebellion and the subsequent support of nobility

iii. Frederick the Great of Prussia His educational reforms in Prussia

a. His continued support of feudal repression

IX. The enlightened human being:

a. was tolerant was critical in his thought

b. believed in the possibility of progress

c. believed in the basic worth of mankind

d. wanted freedom of the press, rights in politics argued for humane treatment of prisoners

X. The limits of Reason: the enlightenment, empiricism and skepticism:

A. John Locke and experience

B. the case of David Hume the problem of induction