Chapter 8: The Age
of Enlightenment
Section 8.36 The
Philosophes and
Others
Enlightenment
Newton’s
Principia
1687
Diderot’s
Encyclopedie
1748
Montesquieu’s
Spirit of Laws
1751
Rousseau’s
Social Contract
& Emile
1759 1762
Voltaire’s
Candide
1764
Adam
Smith’s
Wealth of
Nations
1776
Beccaria’s On
Crime and
Punishment
1794
Condorcet &
Maximilien
Robespierre
executed
Basic Premises
• Reason
• Progress
– All of mankind will
eventually share in the
benefits of reason
• Natural/Universal laws
– universe is governed by
natural laws which are
knowable
• scientific method
– can unlock fundamental
answer in all areas
– In nature and in human
mind
• education
– All humans can be taught to
reason
– Will infinitely improve it
• past regarded dark & barbaric
• Religious toleration
• Equality
• Fair and equal legal system and
tax
• The main agency of progress
was to be the state
– Limited monarchy:
Montesquieu
– Enlightened despotism:
Voltaire
– Republican commonwealth:
Rousseau
• Extremely skeptical of tradition
• Rejected superstitions
• rejected revealed religion
• Deistic- God is a clockmaker
Reactionary Movement in Religion
• Still a religious time
• Congregations first sang Adeste Fideles (Oh
Come All Ye Faithful)
• Pietism movement stirred in Germany
– stressed inner spiritual experience of ordinary
person and quest for an inner light of the soul
John Wesley and Methodism
• student at Oxford
• Led prayer groups
• Good works
• Initiated religious revival in England
• Methodists
Whitfield in the Americas
• Preacher (Toured America)
• Democratizing effect individual worth
• Spawned the Great Awakening
The Philosophes
• Leaders of the
Enlightenment period
• French for philosopher
• Writers
– not philosophers in the
metaphysical sense
• Were social, literary
writers, critics, who
discussed matters with each
other
• Diffused Enlightenment
ideas
Philosphes: Audience and Style
• Literacy rising by mid 18th century
• Literacy rates 47 % men, 27%
women
• Approach any subject in a critical
and inquiring spirit
• Through their writings they spread
the ideas of the Enlightenment
• Writers independent of aristocratic
patrons
• (grub-street writers) Freelancers
that wrote for the public
• Public opinion becomes important
• Had to deal with Censorship
• Metaphoric style
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Paris: The Epicenter
Paris
Epicenter of the enlightenment
Salon
held in the townhouses of the
wealthy
usually conducted by women
Facilitated the exchange of ideas
Promoted the “Republic of
Letters”
authors could introduce new works
and engage in lively conversation
among of ‘rock stars’
Encyclopedie
• Compendium of scientific, technical, &
historical knowledge
• 17 volumes (1751-1772)
• a summation and means of diffusing the most
recent knowledge in science, philosophy, and
technology
• meant to be read through and not used as a
reference
• all traditions must be examined
• directly challenged the Church
• helped spread Enlightenment ideas
• distinguished list of contributors
• Diderot (1713-1784)
– Chief editor
– had a materialistic philosophy
• 25 thou sold before Rev.
Montesquieu (1689-1755)
• Spirit of Laws (1748)
• looked at the way environments and religious traditions
influenced governments
• forms of government varied according to climate and
circumstances
– empires worked in hot climates
– democracy worked in small city-states
• in spite of environmental handicaps gov. can imitate
English system
• Separate and balanced powers (executive, judicial,
legislative)
– Prevented arbitrary power by having a system of checks
and balances
– Balance of powers by dividing the jobs of government
• Executive, legislative, and judicial
• Part of the noble resurgence that began about 1715
• Nobility would be the most powerful
• technically a reactionary
– A strong nobility to check power of absolute monarch
Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet) (1694-1778)
• greatest Philosophes
• made French thinkers more
practical, less theoretical
• 1st to present a purely secular
conception of world history
• politically not a liberal or
democrat
• low opinion of humanity
• Favored Enlightened Despotism
(not quite absolutism)
• must fight against sloth,
stupidity, keep clergy in place,
freedom of religion/speech
• but he had no developed
political theory
Voltaire’s Social Views
• ardent spokesman for civil liberties
• “Crush Infamy” (Ecrasez l’infame) he
called for the eradication of all forms of
repression, fanaticism, and bigotry
• “the individual who persecutes another
because he is not of the same opinion is
nothing less than a monster”
• “I do not agree with a word you are
saying, but I will defend to the death your
right to say it.”
• Hated religious bigotry the most
• “It is forbidden to kill therefore all
murders are punished unless they kill in
large numbers and to the sound of
trumpets.”
Candide (1759)
• Satire on Enlightenment (Optimists)
• Written shortly after the Lisbon
earthquake of 1755
• Rejects unquestioned optimism
• Candide is lulled into false security that
he is in the “best of all possible worlds”
by his tutor, Dr. Pangloss and journeys
throughout the world
• has one misfortune after another
• “Eldorado”
– a land that has no priests, law courts, or
prisons but $ and a place of sciences and
math
• a rip on idea of perfectibility
– Candide gets bored in Eldorado (being a
restless mortal) and leaves
• ‘we must tend our garden’
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
• Promoted the idea of the “noble savage”
• Civilization was the source of corruption
• Only in a natural state could man live an
uncorrupted existence
• Considered an outsider who quarreled with
other philosophes
• Concerned with reforming society, diffusing
useful knowledge, freedom
• despised privilege & believed that just and
moral society could be created by crushing
repressive governments
• Nature over Reason
• Considered the forerunner of the French
Revolution, American Revolution,
Communism (Pol Pot), Romanticism, and
Totalitarianism
• Had greatest influence on education and
political theory
Origin of Inequality Among Men (1753)
• Essay contest of Academy of Dijon
• Has the progress of arts and sciences
benefited man?
• NO
• Man in original state
– Good
– Amour de soi (good self love)
• Agriculture led to concept of private
property
• Led man to judge others
• Judgments led to the creation of laws
• Man lost his freedom
– Amour propre (conceit, vanity, self-love)
The Social Contract (1762)
• Not a contract between a ruler and the ruled
• An agreement among the people
• Individuals surrendered their natural liberty to each
other
• This fused into the General Will
• Rulings of the General Will were final and all agreed
to accept them
• The general will was the sovereign
• Kings, officials, representatives were delegates of a
sovereign people
• Created a state in which all persons had a sense of
membership
• complimented Origins of Inequality & Emile in
creating a moral society
• said in the state of nature “man is born free”
• institution of private property led to owners creating
instruments of repression (laws, police, slavery)
Emile (1762)
• source of progressive education
• maxim that first impulses of nature are
always right
• insisted that children are not miniature
adults
• drilling and discipline not proper for them
• learn by doing (experience)
• book learning postponed until adolescence
since books “teach us only to talk about
things we do not know”
• reason is last thing to develop and it is
pointless to teach child to reason
• education should create moral and useful
citizens
• women belong at home serving men
• written as a “how to” in which Rousseau
takes an imaginary boy (orphan) and
raises him to adulthood
Condorcet (1743-1794) & Faith in Progress
• considered the last of the philosophes b/c
his work was cut short by the Revolution
• mathematician but known most for his
belief in progress
• thinkers of the 1600s regarded themselves
modern and intellectually superior to the
ancients
• Progress of the Human Mind (1794)
attested that the moderns were more
advanced and unlimited progress lay ahead
• predicted healthier society in which
“moment will come…when tyrants and
slaves will exist only in history or on the
stage”
• Ironically he would be killed during the
Terror
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
• Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire (1776-1788)
• covers Roman and Byzantine
history from Augustine to fall of
Constantinople (1453)
• says Empire was brought down by
barbarian invasions, and
Christianity
• Christianity was worst calamity
b/c “the servile and pusillanimous
reign of the monks debased and
vitiated the faculties of the mind”
Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)
• Milanese jurist who wrote On Crimes
and Punishments (1764)
• questioned the view that punishment
represent the vengeance of society
• said that punishment should serve as a
deterrent and that leniency was best
deterrent
• opposed the death penalty
• book translated into 12 languages and
most European countries abolished
torture (1800) and reserved death
penalty for capital crimes, adopted
imprisonment rather than maiming
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
• Wealth of Nations (1776)
• opposed mercantilism
• gov. purpose should be limited to defense, internal
security, give fair laws
• innovations would come from private persons, not
the state
• proponent of free trade, free market
• comparative advantage
• individuals should be allowed to pursue their own
self-interests
• termed “laissez-faire” from French expression
“laissez-faire la nature” (let nature run its course)
• believed that like the law of gravity keeps planets
in orbit the “invisible hand” of free market and
competitive forces will balance out wealth for all
• thought himself a champion of the poor
• Natural laws of supply and demand
• Required the mutual interaction of the enlightened
self-interest of millions of people
Impact of Enlightenment