The Age of Reason & Enlightenment

What is “Enlightenment?”
Reason
& Logic
e rationalism
e empiricism
e tolerance
e skepticism
e Deism
Traditions
and
Superstitions
e nostalgia for the
past
e organized religions
e irrationalism
e emotionalism
Immanuel Kant –-- DARE TO KNOW!

Centers of the Enlightenment

Critical Ideas Behind the Age of Reason
The ability to reason is what makes humans
unique.
• Reason can be used to solve problems and improve peoples lives.
The natural world is governed by laws that can be
discovered through reason.
• Reason can free people from ignorance, superstition and unfair
government.
Like the natural world human behavior is governed by
natural laws.
• Governments should reflect natural laws and encourage education
and debate.

Reason vs. Superstition
Cause and
Effect
Fate
People who believe in reason – believe that they can
control their own lives. Their decisions determine what will
happen to them. They deal with outside forces in their lives
and try to overcome obstacles.
People who believe in fate think that things just happen to
them for no reason. They are the victim or recipient of some
great mystery. Life, therefore has very little meaning.

The Impact of Science
Exploring Political Ideas
Scientific Method
• Profoundly influenced political theory.
• Political thinkers began to look at
natural law as a background for all
laws.
• Is there ever a problem with just
following REASON?

A Parisian Salon

Madame Geoffrin
(1699-1777)
The Salonnieres
Mademoiselle
Julie de
Lespinasse
(1732*-1776)
Madame
Suzanne Necker
(1739-1794)

A Parisian Salon
•Salons promoted new
ideas
•Were a center for
intellectual activity
•Social gatherings
brought together
artists, philosophers,
scientists, and writers
to discuss their ideas.
•Women were the
impetus for these
gatherings.

The Impact of Science
Hobbes Explores Government
• 1651 he wrote
Leviathan – about the
English Civil War
• Believed government
imposed order, and
prevents violence.
• He preferred a
monarchy.
• Came up with the idea
of Social Contract.

Hobbes's beliefs
• Hobbes believed people
were born evil and
needed government to
keep them from living
lives of selfishness and
greed.
• What do you think?

John Locke (1632-1704)
►Locke believed people
were born good and that
governments were bad.
►Believed all people were
born equal and later
established classes, rich
and poor, etc….
►People have the right to
overthrow a government
that does not protect their
rights.

John Locke (1632-1704)
► Locke agrees with the
social contract, only he
argues that people have
natural rights. Life, Liberty
and property that no one
could take away.
►People create
governments to protect
natural rights; if a gov’t fails
to protect those rights the
people have the right to
overthrow the gov’t.

John Locke’s Philosophy (I)
► The individual must become a “rational
creature.”
► Virtue can be learned and practiced.
► Human beings possess free will.
- they should be prepared for freedom.
- obedience should be out of conviction,
not out of fear.
► Legislators owe their power to a contract
with the people.
► Neither kings nor wealth are divinely
ordained.
►Wrote Two Treatises of Civil Government

John Locke’s Philosophy (II)
► There are certain natural rights
that are endowed by God to all
human beings.
- life, liberty, property!
► The doctrine of the Divine Right
of Kings was nonsense.
► He favored democracy as the best
form of government.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
►Believed people were
born good and society
corrupted people.
►Individuals should give
up individual freedoms for
the good of the community.
►He despised inequality
and would inspire
revolutionaries for
generations to come.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
►Everywhere man is
born free, and
everywhere man is in
chains.
►Criticized the
Enlightenment
►People should rely
on emotion and
instinct.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
►Social Contract
►Sovereignty comes
from the people.
►He believed in
Democracy.

The Baron de Montesquieu (1689-
1755)
► Persian Letters,
1721
► On the Spirit of
Laws, 1758

The Baron de Montesquieu
• The idea of separation
of powers.
– Executive powers –
enforce laws
– Legislative powers –
make laws
– Judicial powers –
interpret laws
• This limits the
government’s power.
• He favored a Republic

The Philosophe
► polymathic --– broad knowledge
► autonomous –-- beholden to no one.
► sociable –-- worked with other
philosophes.
► moral obligation –-- improve society.
- find the most just and efficient
“systems.” (economic, political,
social)

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
► Critique of Pure
Reason, 1781
► “What is
Enlightenment?”, 1784
► Metaphysical
Foundations of
Natural Science, 1786

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
• Reason without
religion is a bad
idea.
• Deism is not good.
• Deists believed
that God created
the world and then
left it alone.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
► Common Sense,
1776
► The Rights of Man,
1791

The American “Philosophes”
John Adams
(1745-1826) Ben Franklin
(1706-1790)
Thomas
Jefferson
(1743-1826)
…...…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…………...

New Social Issues
• Religious toleration –
philosophers begin to
question real equality.
• Women’s Rights –
women begin to ask
questions about their
own rights
• Economics – the end of
mercantilism and the
beginning of capitalism.

Voltaire (1712-1778)
► Essay on the Customs
and Spirit of Nations,
1756
► Candide, 1759
► Philosophical
Dictionary,
1764

Voltaire’s “Wisdom” (I)
► Every man is guilty of all the good he
didn’t do.
► God is a comedian playing to an
audience
too afraid to laugh.
► If God did not exist, it would be
necessary
to invent him.
► It is dangerous to be right when the
government is wrong.
► Love truth and pardon error.

Voltaire’s “Wisdom” (II)
► Judge of a man by his questions rather than
by his answers.
► Men are equal; it is not birth, but virtue
that makes the difference.
► Prejudice is opinion without judgment.
► The way to become boring is to say
everything.
► I may not agree with what you have to say,
but I will defend to the death your right to
say it.

Voltaire (1712-1778)
• Believed in religious
tolerance.
• Made famous by taking
up the cause of Jean
Calas.
• His views gave us our
modern version of
freedom of religion.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

Diderot’s Encyclopédie

The Encyclopédie
► Complete cycle of
knowledge…………...…
change the general way of thinking.
► 28 volumes.
► Alphabetical, cross-referenced,
illustrated.
► First published in 1751.
► 1500 lires a set.

Subscriptions to Diderot’s
Encyclopedie

The Encyclopédie
• Spread the Enlightenment ideas to a vast
audience.
► Literacy:
- 80% for men; 60 % women.
► Books were expensive (one day’s wages).
► Many readers for each book (20 : 1)
- novels, plays & other literature.
- journals, memoirs, “private lives.”
- philosophy, history, theology.
- newspapers, political pamphlets.

Mary Wollstonecraft
► Believed men
and women should
be equal.
►First to use the
Enlightenment to
increase feminism.
►A Vindication of
the Rights of
Woman

Capitalism: Laissez-Faire
► Adam Smith
- 1776 --– The Wealth of Nations
e Profit motive.
e Division of labor.
e Private ownership of
property.
e Law of Supply & Demand.
e Law of Competition.
e Free trade.

Reading During the Enlightenment
► Literacy:
- 80% for men; 60 % women.
► Books were expensive (one day’s
wages).
► Many readers for each book (20 : 1)
- novels, plays & other literature.
- journals, memoirs, “private lives.”
- philosophy, history, theology.
- newspapers, political pamphlets.

Frederick the Great of Prussia
• Supported freedom of the
Press
• Made the government more
efficient
• Backed religious tolerance
• Made it illegal to torture
people to get them to confess.

Russian Expansionism in the Late 18c

Catherine the Great (r. 1762-1796)
• Reformed government and some
laws
•Criticized serfdom – then
clamped down on the serfs
•Abolished torture and allowed
religious tolerance.

Catherine the Great
• Built up the Russian Middle Class.
• Brought down trade barriers with other
countries.
• She had to be very careful not to make the
nobles angry so that she would stay in power.
• This limited her ability to make huge reforms.

The Partitions of Poland
- 1772
- 1793
- 1795

Maria Theresa of Austria
• Reduced the amount of
work a landholder could
ask from a peasant.
• Increased her own
power and used her
power to help the
peasants in the country.
• Made taxes fair for all
people in Austria
• Taxed nobles and clergy

Joseph II of Austria (r. 1765-1790)
• Ruled with his mother
until her death.
• Increased his own
power to help the
people.
• Freed all the peasants.
• Limited the Catholic
Church’s influence.
• Enforced religious
tolerance.

The Legacy of the
Enlightenment?
1. The democratic revolutions begun in
America in 1776 and continued in
Amsterdam, Brussels, and especially in
Paris in the late 1780s, put every Western
government on the defensive.
2. Reform, democracy, and republicanism had
been placed irrevocably on the Western
agenda.

The Legacy of the
Enlightenment?
3. New forms of civil society arose –-- clubs,
salons, fraternals, private academies, lending
libraries, and professional/scientific
organizations.
4. 19c conservatives blamed it for the modern
“egalitarian disease” (once reformers began
to criticize established institutions, they
didn’t know where and when to stop!)

The Legacy of the
Enlightenment?
5. It established a materialistic tradition based
on an ethical system derived solely from a
naturalistic account of the human condition
(the “Religion of Nature”).
6. Theoretically endowed with full civil and legal
rights, the individual had come into existence
as a political and social force to be reckoned
with.

The Royal Academy of Sciences,
Paris

Zoology & Biology
A dissection at the Royal Academy,
London.

Chemistry Labs & Botany Gardens

Natural History Collections
► Cocoa plant drawing.
► Sir Hans Sloane
(1660-1753).
► collected from Jamaica.

Natural History Collections
James Petiver’s Beetles
(London apothecary)

Private Collections
The Origins of Modern Museums.