The Enlightenment
Important terms
• Absolutism: A system of government in which a
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monarch is the only source of power
Common good: An effort by individuals to work
together for the benefit of all
• Natural rights: A belief that individuals are
naturally endowed with basic human rights that
cannot be taken away or given up
Path to the Enlightenment
• Forefathers of the Enlightenment:
– John Locke: wrote Essay Concerning Human
Understanding
• Stated that every person was born with a tabula
rasa, or blank slate
• People are molded by the experiences in the
world, and so if people change society can change
as well
Hobbes v. Locke
• In this corner: John Locke: Believing that people
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have natural rights and that before society was
organized people lived in a state of equality and
freedom
And in this corner: Thomas Hobbes: Believing
that people entered into a social contract and
agreed to form a state; this state would then be
governed by an absolute ruler in order to keep
peace and preserve order
Sir Isaac Newton
• The physical world and everything in
it was like a giant machine
• Enlightenment thinkers would use
Newton’s methods to discover the natural
laws that govern human society
What was the Enlightenment?
• A historical period in the 18th century
in which science and reason was
applied to question traditional
thinking about the world; provided
new thinking about government and
people’s rights
The Spread of the Enlightenment
• Lower class and peasants unaffected by
Enlightenment. Why?
– Most Enlightenment ideas spread through the growth
of reading
• Elite in society= literate
• Growing number of middle class also becoming literate at
this time= spread of Enlightenment ideas among middle
class
– Development of magazines and newspapers
• Helped to spread Enlightenment ideas to a mass audience
• First daily newspaper published in London in 1702
Salons
• Salon: elegant drawing rooms of the wealthy
upper class
– Invited guests would gather in salons and discuss
topics that centered around the new ideas of the
philosophes
– Women who host these salons are given a degree of
political and social influence
• Salon discussions are used to sway political opinion and
social tastes
Who led the Enlightenment?
• The philosophes: the Enlightenment
thinkers
– Writers, professors, journalists, economists,
and social reformers
– Mostly noble/middle class
– The role of philosophy is to change the world
– The philosophes often disagreed
Influential Philosophes
Baron de Montesquieu
• French nobility
• The Spirit of Laws: study of governments
– Tried to use the scientific method to find the natural laws that
govern the social and political relationships of human beings
– Three kinds of governments:
• Republics= small states
• Despotism= large states
• Monarchies= moderate states
–
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Three forms of government
• The executive (monarch)
• The legislative (parliament)
• The judicial (courts)
– Government functions through a separation of powers/ checks
and balances
Voltaire
• Prosperous middle class family in Paris
• Religion: Criticized Christianity and believed
strongly that all religions should be tolerant of
one another
– “All men are brothers under God.”
– Treatise on Toleration, 1763
• Deism
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Foundation= Newtonian world-machine
Mechanic of the universe= God (clockmaker)
Universe= a clock
What happens after God sets the clock? What is his
God’s role then?
Jean Jacques Rousseau
• Part of the later Enlightenment
• Discourse on the Origins of the Inequality of
Mankind: people are enslaved to their
governments
• The Social Contract:
– Most famous work
– Social contract: society agrees to be governed by its
general will
• Individuals cannot follow their own self- interests
Women and the Enlightenment
• Mary Wollstonecraft: founder of the
modern European and American Women’s
rights movements and a daughter of the
Enlightenment
– Vindication of the Rights of Women: argues
that many Enlightenment thinkers are
hypocrites when it comes to the role
of women in society
The Enlightenment and Religion
• John Wesley: An Anglican minister who founded
a new religious movement called Methodism
– Focused on preaching to all people, and not just the
upper and middle classes
– Preached in open fields
– Methodist societies were formed in which everyone
helped each other to do good works and gave those
involved a sense of purpose and community
– Stressed the importance of hard work and spiritual
contentment versus political equality
– Religion was not overshadowed by the search for
reason during the Enlightenment as proven by the
formation of Methodism