The Enlightenment – an Introduction. Mark Knights
What was the Enlightenment? What did it think it was challenging? What was
its scope? What aspects of life did it want to shape or influence? So, how the
Enlightenment saw itself.
The terms. 1784 ‘was ist Aufklärung?’
Time and space: Early, late/high Enlightenment
The attack on the ‘ancien régime’
Enlightenment and French Revolution: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire
The Enlightenment caricature of the ‘ancien régime’: authority and order
Church, Monarchy/State, Social hierarchy
Derived from scripture and custom
Subjects not citizens
What positive ideals did the Enlightenment seek instead?
Two over-arching objectives:
1) Reason and experiment. Immanuel Kant
2) Progress towards the good life. Marquis de Condorcet, ‘Sketch for a
Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind’ (c.1794)
Can we identify areas where the Enlightenment appears distinctive?
Religion (Thomas Paine, Baron d’Holbach, Abbé Sièyes)
Political Authority
The public
Knowledge (Carl Linnaeus; the Encyclopédie 1751-1772; D’Alembert,
Diderot)
5) Wealth and luxury
6) Exploration of the world (Diderot, Tahiti)
1)
2)
3)
4)
Variety about how these ideals were thought about: not monolithic, and how
original?