The Enlightenment

THE ENLIGHTENMENT
è secular world view: first time in human history; marked end of age of religion
natural science and reason
deism: God created universe and then stepped back and left it running (like a clock)
Grew out of Newton’s theories regarding natural law
Thomas Paine, Age of Reason: advocates deism
progress: improve society through natural laws
Rationalists: advocated perfectibility of society
Descartes
Baruch Spinoza (1632-77): equated God and nature; impersonal mechanical universe; denied
free will
Empiricists: emphasized observation as basis for epistemology
Francis Bacon – inductive method
è John Locke (1632-1704)
Two Treatises on Civil Government: justified supremacy of Parliament; natural rights
Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690): tabula rasa (“blank slate”)
considered one of most important Enlightenment works
all human knowledge is the result of sensory experience: thus, human progress
is in the hands of society—education!

è classical liberalism: (see handout)
Philosophes: those who made Enlightenment ideas available to a wider audience
Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – attacked Christianity
Bernard de Fontenelle (1657-1757): made scientific revolution accessible to many people
Marquis di Beccaria: sought to humanize the criminal law
Marquis de Condorcet: human progress would eventually lead to its perfection
è The Three Great French Philosophes
Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet) (1694-1778): Candide
Baron de Montesqueiu (1689-1755): Spirit of the Laws (1748): checks and balances
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78): Social Contract (1762): general will
Denis Diderot (1713-1784) Encyclopedia: greatest and most representative intellectual achievements
of the philosophes
Economic theory
Francois Quesnay (1694-1774) – “physiocrats”: opposed to mercantilist economic theory
advocated reform of the agrarian order.
Adam Smith (1727-1790): Wealth of Nations (1776): The “Bible” of capitalism; laissez faire
Gender theory: women played important role in organizing salons
Salons of Madame de Geoffren and Louise de Warens
Mary Wollstonecraft
Later Enlightenment:
Baron Paul d’Holbach (1723-1789): humans were machines governed by outside forces
freewill, God, and immortality of soul were foolish myths
severe blow to unity of the Enlightenment
David Hume (1711-76): emphasized limitations of human reasoning; human mind is nothing but a bundle of impressions; later became dogmatic skeptic that undermined Enlightenment
Rousseau believed rationalism and civilization was destroying rather than liberating the
individual; emphasized nature, passion—influenced early Romantic movement
Immanuel Kant (1724-1794): Separated science and morality into separate branches of
knowledge. Science could describe natural phenomena of material world but could not provide a guide for morality

è Significance of the Enlightenment: leads to
· Enlightened despotism
· American and French Revolutions (as a result of classical liberalism)
· educational reform
· laissez faire capitalism (in 19th century, esp. U.S.)

Theistic opposition to the Enlightenment
German pietism: argued need for spiritual conversion and religious experience
Methodism: taught need for spiritual regeneration and a moral life that would demonstrate
reality of the conversion
John Wesley (1703-91):
Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield in America (1st Great Awakening)
Jansenism (Catholic sect) in France argued against idea of an uninvolved or impersonal God