The Age of Reason &
Enlightenment
Pre-Enlightenment Thought
How did these eras change intellectual thought?
Renaissance...
Reformation…
Scientific Revolution…
Origins: 18th Century Politics
Britain…
France…
Prussia, Hapsburg Empire, Russia…
Ottoman Empire…
Origins: Political Origins Revulsion against political abuses arising in the 1680s
James II of England
Louis XIV of France
Resolution in England => Glorious Revolution
John Locke (1632-1704)
American Philosophes
Thomas Paine (1737-1809); John Adams (1745-1826); Ben
Franklin (1706-1790); Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Enlightenment Giants:
John Locke (1632-1704)
Enlightenment Giants:
John Locke (1632-1704) John Locke’s Philosophy
The individual must become a “rational creature.”
Virtue can be learned and practiced
Human beings possess free will
Legislators owe their power to a contract with the people
Neither kings nor wealth are divinely ordained
There are certain natural rights that are endowed by God to all
human beings
Favored a “Republic”
Origins: Scientific Origins
New standards for arriving at truth
The empirical and the practical
Universal mathematical formulas
Presence of alternatives
Origins: Religious Origins
Physico-theology
Support of “rational” religion
Deism
Unitarianism
Pantheism
THE BIG DEBATE
RELIGION VS. REASON
What is the Enlightenment?
REASON
& LOGIC
TRADITIONS &
SUPERSTITIONS
• Rationalism
• Empiricism
• Tolerance
• Skepticism
• Deism
• Nostalgia for past
• Organized religions
• Irrationalism
• Emotionalism
Centers of the Enlightenment
Questions of the Enlightenment
What is the purpose of Man?
What are the goals of Education?
What is the right social/political order?
What is the role of religious institutions?
What is the relationship of man to God?
What is the humanitarian approach?
How should society be reformed?
What are the “natural laws” in a perfect society?
Core Enlightenment Ideas
Universe is rational
Man is also rational and can understand the universe
Human society is governed by natural laws
These laws may be discovered through observation & reason
Man might progress until he eventually achieve perfection
Enlightenment Values 1. Scientific Values
2. Interaction between disciples of math and science
3. Rationality = reasoning
4. Rights of Man
5. Change and Reform
6. Natural Laws
7. Questioning the Church (estab. Religious Institutions)
8. Emphasis on knowledge and learning
9. Science and Faith work together
The “Modern World View” Progress
Secularization
Reason
Education
Nature
Liberty
Purpose of Life
The Philosophes
Who were they?
The Salons
Effect on Enlightenment
Cross-National Movement
Class based movement
Nationalism vs. Class
Economic effects?
The Salons
The Salons
Salonnieres
Madame Geoffrin (1699-1777)
Mademoiselle Julie de Lespinasse
(1732*-1776)
Madame Suzanne Necker
(1739-1794)
Enlightenment Giants:
Voltaire (1712-1778)
Enlightenment Giants:
Voltaire (1712-1778)
Greatest of the Enlightenment writers
Admired English life and institution
Tolerant of Christians
“God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh”
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong”
“Men are equal; it is not birth, but virtue that makes the difference”
“I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
Enlightenment Giants:
Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
Enlightenment Giants:
Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
The Encyclopedie
Complete cycle of
knowledge…change the
general way of thinking
Explained most advanced
ideas
Designed for secular
learning
Focused on humanity and
reason
Enlightenment Politics:
Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
The Spirit of the Laws
No set of political laws
worked at all times in all
places
Advocated division of
power
Enlightenment Economics:
Adam Smith
Wealth of Nations
Response to mercantilist
failures
Profit motive
Division of Labor
Private ownership of
property
Law of Supply & Demand
Law of Competition
Free Trade (Laissez-faire)
Enlightened Absolutism
Frederick the Great (Prussia)
Catherine the Great (Russia)
Joseph II (Austria)
Other Big Names in the Enlightenment
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Discourse on the Origins and
Inequality of Mankind
The Social Contract
Marquis de Condorcet
The Progress of the Human
Mind
Baron Paul d’Holbach
Atheism and Materialism
Systems of Nature
Legacy of the Enlightenment
Revolutions
Reform
New forms of civil society
“Egalitarian Disease”
Materialism
The emergence of the Individual
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