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The Enlightenment (ca. 1650-1800)
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I. The Scientific Revolution
A. Deism
B. Heliocentrism: Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo
C. The scientific method: Bacon and Descartes
D. Influence on Dutch Painting
II. The Enlightenment: The Promise of Reason
A. The concept of natural law
a. Political theories: Hobbes and Locke
b. Economic theories: Adam Smith
B. Encyclopédie
C. The Crusade for progress
III. The Limits of Reason
A. Historical context: industrialism & the transatlantic slave trade
B. Satire: Swift and Voltaire
C. Revolt against pure reason: Rousseau and Kant
D. The French Revolution
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I. The Scientific Revolution
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A. Deism (1600-1750)
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A. Belief in God the Creator; God as a master mechanic
B. A “natural” religion based on human reason rather than revelation. (Fiero 119)
C. An issue: whether God intervenes in the world
“The classical view is that the universe was created by a God, who then makes no further intervention in its affairs (the clockmaker hypothesis). In this view, the reason God does not intervene in the world (via miracles) is not that God does not care, but rather that the best of all possible worlds has already been created and any intervention could not improve it.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism)
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An Example: Voltaire
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Reflecting on the sky at night, Voltaire wrote: “One would have to be blind not to be dazzled by this sight; one would have to be stupid not to recognize its author; one would have to be mad not to worship him.” “If God did not exist, He would have to be invented.”
(Davies, Europe, 601)
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B. Heliocentrism
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Models of the Cosmos:
Geocentric vs. Heliocentric
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Galileo Galilei
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A. “Galileo grew interested in the heavens, and built his own telescope in 1609 after the discovery of lenses was reported from Holland.”
B. “Galileo discovered craters on the Moon, sunspots which rotated with the Sun, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, and phases of Venus.”
C. “This last observation demonstrated that the Copernican theory was correct, since phases would only be observed if Venus were always closer to the sun than to the Earth.”
<http://scientificthinkers.wikidot.com/galileo-galilei>
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Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
Newton’s Scientific Synthesis
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A. Provided a theory of universal gravitation in Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (or Principia, 1687).
B. Newtonian world-machine: Newton proposed “the concept of an orderly universe . . . that operated systematically as a well-oiled machine” (Fiero 121).
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C. The Scientific Model
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A. The empirical method
1. inductive reasoning
2. direct observation and experimentation
B. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Novum Organum (The New Methodology)
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“This was the frontpiece to Novum Organum(perhaps The New Methodology). . . .”
“The ship is sailing through the Straights of Gibraltar, out beyond the common limits of exploration for English ships at that time.”
“Bacon looked for a new era of scientific discovery where the old boundaries and the old ways of thinking would no longer constrain discovery.”
http://maths.anu.edu.au/~johnm/dm/dmpaper.html
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum
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Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
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•Novum Organum: New Method, or true Directions Concerning the Interpretation of Nature
•Idols of the Tribe: projection of our understanding and behavior on and toward natural processes or other objects, e.g. our perception of time.
•Idols of the Cave: allowing one’s prior knowledge, circumstances and opinions to cloud one’s judgment, e.g. individual biases and prejudices
•Idols of the Marketplace: e.g. custom and agreement, sexism in language
•Idols of the Theatre: conceptual networks of philosophical schools, e.g. Plato’s explanation of “soul after death”
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<http://www.iep.utm.edu/bacon/>
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René Descartes (1596-1650)
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A. The subject is defined as the original location of certainty:
“Cogito, ergo sum.” = “I” think, therefore “I am.”
I doubt, therefore I am.
B. Cartesian dualism →the split of mind and body →The senses are unreliable.
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http://english.turkcebilgi.com/Ghost+in+the+Machine
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Deductive Reasoning: an Example
“Cogito, ergo sum.”
1. I exist (Axiom)
2. I have in my mind the notion of a perfect being (Axiom, partly based on 1)
3. An imperfect being, like myself, cannot think up the notion of a perfect being (Axiom)
4. Therefore the notion of a perfect being must have originated from the perfect being himself (from 2 & 3)
5. A perfect being would not be perfect if it did not exist (Axiom)
6. Therefore a perfect being must exist (from 4 & 5)
“Cogito, ergo sum.”
→“Nothing comes of nothing.”
→Something must have existed before the cogito.
↓
“God exists.”
http://www.positiveatheism.org/faq/descartes.htm
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John Locke (1632-1704)
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A. Culmination of the Empirical Tradition (Fiero 120)
B. Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
1. The human mind at birth is a tabula rasa (“blank slate”)
2. All knowledge originates from sense perception: “Nothing is in the understanding that was not first in the senses.”
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http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JohnLocke.png
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C. Optimism:
1. Believed in the goodness and perfectibility of humanity
2. Education promises individual moral improvement and social progress.
On Natural Rights:
“Men being . . . by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent”
(from Of Civil Government, Fiero 137).
The social contract preserves the natural rights of the governed:
“The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil society is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceful living one amongst another”
(from Of Civil Government, Fiero 137).
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D. Influence on Dutch Painting
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Dutch Painting in the 17th Century
A. Influenced by the new “Baconian” attention to the evidence of the senses
B. Main feature: photographic realism
C. Foci: the art of describing; attention to detail
D. Genres: still life, portraits, landscape, genre painting (scenes of everyday life)
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II. The Enlightenment: the Promise of Reason
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| Dates: from 1687 (Newton’s Principia) to 1789 (the beginning of the French Revolution) |
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A. The Concept of Natural Law
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•Definition: “the unwritten and divinely sanctioned law of nature”
(Fiero 134).
•Natural laws can be grasped by way of reason: “As Newton had established the natural laws of the physical universe, so [eighteenth-century intellectuals] sought to establish general laws of human behavior”
(Fiero 134).
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Laws of Human Behavior
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A. Birth of the social sciences
B. Political theories of Hobbes and Locke
C. Influence of Locke on Montesquieu and Jefferson
D. Economic theories of Adam Smith
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Hugo Grotius (1583-1645)
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http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/grotius.html
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A. Dutch statesman
B. Father of modern international law
C. Originator of “natural morality” and the social contract theory of the state.
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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
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Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government ….”
(“The Declaration of Independence”, 1776)
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Adam Smith (1723-1790)
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A. a Scottish philosopher
B. Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
1. Advocated free enterprise and the policy of Laissez-faire (literally, “allowed to act”)
2. Believed that rational individual would pursue their interest rationally
3. the “invisible hand” of the marketplace hence refers to individual self-interest, which Smith believed guides the most efficient use of resources in a nation''s economy
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B. Encyclopédie
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http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Diderot_-_
Encyclopedie_1ere_edition_tome_4.djvu
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A. 35 volumes, published between 1751 and 1772
B. Chief editor: Denis Diderot
(1713-1784)
C. A collection of “all the knowledge” on earth
D. Voltaire: “Let the facts prevail.”
E. Purpose: to “change the general way of thinking”
F. To demonstrate how the everyday applications of science could promote progress and alleviate all forms of human misery.
G. Louis XV banned it twice
The Encyclopedic Cast of Mind: Emphasis on the accumulation, codification, and systematic preservation of knowledge (Fiero 143).
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C. The Crusade for Progress
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A. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
1. Noted for his optimism: he believed that our world, the world that God creates, must be “the best of all possible worlds” and must have the maximum possible beauty, order and harmony. In this world, even evil exists for a reason.
2. His view is ridiculed in Voltaire’s Candide.
B. Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
“WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT”
(from “An Essay on Man”: Epistle I, Fiero 150)
C. Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794)
“The real advantages that should result from this progress, of which we can
entertain a hope that is almost a certainty, can have no other term than
that of the absolute perfection of the human race . . .”
(from Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, Fiero 146).
D. Result: a “cult of utility”
1. Advances in science and technology
2. Social reforms
3. Tyranny and injustice challenged
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The Rights of Women
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
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•A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
•The argument: men consider females “rather as women than human creatures.” Women receive “a false system of education” that teaches them to sacrifice strength and usefulness to beauty so that they could please men.
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III. The Limits of Reason
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A. Historical Context
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A New Barbarism
A. The Industrial Revolution
“. . . the English factory system often gave rise to dangerous working conditions and the exploitation of labor—mainly women and children” (Fiero 153).
B. The transatlantic slave trade
(left) http://cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/33-340-Life-in-stuarts.html
(right) http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/geography/slave_trade.htm
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B. Satire
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Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
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1. Gulliver’s Travels
2. “A Modest Proposal”: In view of the poverty of Irish farmers, Swift proposed that most of the children there should “at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom” as food to be consumed at the dinner table.
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Voltaire (1694-1778)
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1. The personification of the Enlightenment
2. Great admirer and popularizer of all things English (Newton, Bacon, Locke)
3. “Écrasez l’infâme”: literally, “crush infamy” (all forms of repression, fanaticism, and bigotry)
4. Had contacts with Frederick of Prussia and Catherine the Great
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Visual Satire
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William Hogarth, “Marriage a la Mode: the marriage settlement.” 1743. Web. NationalGallery. 28 July 2011.
<http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/william-hogarth-marriage-a-la-mode-1-the-marriage-settlement>
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William Hogarth (1697-1746)
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A. The Marriage Transaction
B. Gin Lane
The Marriage Transaction
(Marriage à la mode)
“The story starts in the mansion of the Earl Squander who is arranging to marry his son to the daughter of a wealthy but mean city merchant. It ends with the murder of the son and the suicide of the daughter.”
•The Marriage Settlement
“. . . the aged Earl (far right) is shown with his family tree and the crutches he needs because of his gout.”
“The merchant, who is plainly dressed, holds the marriage contract, while his daughter behind him listens to a young lawyer . . . . The Earl''s son, the Viscount, admires his face in a mirror.”
“A grand portrait in the French manner on the rear wall confronts a Medusa head, denoting horror, on the sidewall.”
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/william-hogarth-marriage-a-la-mode-1-the-marriage-settlement 15 October 2011
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Gin Lane
•“Most shockingly, the focus of the picture is a woman in the foreground, who, addled by gin and driven to prostitution by her habit-as evidenced by the syphilitic sores on her legs-lets her baby slip unheeded from her arms and plunge to its death in the stairwell of the gin cellar below. Half-naked, she has no concern for anything other than a pinch of snuff.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_Lane 15 October 2011
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Beer Street vs. Gin Lane 
•“The inhabitants of both Beer Street and Gin Lane are drinking rather than working, but in Beer Street the workers are resting after their labours . . . while in Gin Lane the people drink instead of working.”
•“Hogarth intended Beer Street to be viewed first to make Gin Lane more shocking—but it is also celebration of Englishness and depicts of the benefits of being nourished by the native beer.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_Lane 15 October 2011
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C. Revolt Against Pure Reason
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
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A. Works:
Politics: The Social Contract (1762)
Education: Emile (1762)
B. Influence: Montessori (1870-1952)
C. Slogan in French Revolution: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/r/rousseau.htm
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Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
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A. The mind is not a passive recipient of information (Locke’s “blank slate”) but, rather, a participant in the knowledge process.
B. Focused on the question of cognition:
Reality = the mind + its perception / understanding
C. The “Categorical Imperative”: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
D. What we must do in any situation of moral choice is act according to a maxim that we would will everyone to act according to.
(Fiero 643) & http://www.iep.utm.edu/k/kantmeta.htm
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D. The French Revolution
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Causes
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A. Financial Disorders:
1. Unjust tax system
2. Bankruptcy of the government:
a. war expenses
b. extravagant life styles
B. Class Conflict: Three Estates (the Old Regime)
1. First: clergy (1%) (owned 10% of the land)-->largest landowner, tax exemption
2. Second: nobility (2%) (owned 25 % of the land)-->best positions in government and army, tax exemption
3. Third: everyone else (97%)--> heavy taxation, feudal dues
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 http://www.indiana.edu/~b357/weeks--2008/week%202.html
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C. The Enlightenment
1. Voltaire
2. Locke
3. Montesquieu
4. Rousseau
D. American Revolution:1776 The Declaration of Independence
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Two Stages of the French Revolution
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A. The Moderate Stage: (1789-1791)
B. The Radical Stage: The Second French Revolution (1792-1794)
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The Radical Stage (1792-1794)
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| Legacy:
“The Revolution eroded the strength of those traditional institutions—church, guild, parish—that had for centuries given people a common bond. In their place now stood patriotic organizations and a culture that insisted on loyalty to one national cause” (Lerner 706).
The Guillotine
http://guillotineparty.tumblr.com/
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After the Revolution
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1795-1799: The Directory
--A board of 5 men
--Ineffective reaction
1799-1815: Napoleon Bonaparte
1799-1804: Consolidating Authority
1799 First Consul
1801 Concordat with the pope
1802 Consul for life
1804 Crowned himself emperor
1806-1815: Napoleon’s downfall
1806 The Continental System
1808 Invaded Spain
1812 Invaded Russia
1814 Abdication
1815 Exile
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System of Administration
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1. Centralization
2. Careers open to talent
3. Equality before the law
4. Abolition of ancient customs and privileges
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Impact of French Revolution
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1. Liberty: more freedom
2. Equality: no legal distinctions of rank
3. Nation: a nation of citizens, a nation ruled by law
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Works Cited
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Davies, Norman. Europe. London: Pimlico, 1997.
Fiero, Gloria. The Humanistic Tradition. Vol. 2. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011.
Lerner, Robert E., Standish Meacham, and Edward McNall Burns. Western Civilizations. 13th ed. New York: Norton, 1998.
Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art. London: Chancellor, 1981.
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