Chapter 17

The Eighteenth Century:

An Age of Enlightenment

Timeline

The Enlightenment“…Man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity.”

“Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!”Reason, Natural Law, Hope, Progress

Paths to EnlightenmentPopularization of Science

• Bernard de Fontenelle (1657 – 1757) Sec’y French Royal Academy: Plurality of Worlds -- Science as popular literature

A New Skepticism -- Sci. Rev. let the genie out of the bottle!• Attacked superstition, religious intolerance, and dogmatism• Skepticism about religion and growing secularization• Pierre Bayle (1647 – 1706): Fr. Protestant -- belief in indiv.

Conscience, relig. Toleration. Historical and Critical Dictionary

The Impact of Travel Literature• Travel books became very popular• Captain James Cook, Travels -- Concept of “Noble Savage”• Literature on China -- Confucian morality• Cultural relativism -- undermines certainty in European practices

The Legacy of Locke & NewtonNewton

Reason could discover natural laws that govern politics, economics justice, religion, and the arts

Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding -- Theory of Knowledge

Knowledge derived from the environment• Everyone born w/ Tabula Rasa (blank slate)

Nurture vs. Nature debate

• Observation, reason -- not faith

Denied Descartes’ belief in innate ideas

If envir. shapes people -- why not change environment? Shape indivs & society!

The Philosophes and their Ideas

Came from all walks of life

Paris was the “capital” -- but Enlightenment was Cosmopolitan

Desire to change the world: “…study society with the purpose of making his kind better and happier.”

Call for a spirit of rational criticism: reason as scientific method applied to everything

Call for Freedom of Expression -- Censorship

Pseudonymous authorship; Dutch publishers

NOT call for democracy everywhere!!!!!!!!

Not monolithic: over time -- radicalization

3 French Giants: Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot

Enlightenment in Europe

Montesquieu and Political Thought

Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Persian Letters, 1721• Two Persians traveling in Europe noting their

impressions -- common technique to skirt censors

Attacks traditional religion, advocacy of religious toleration, denunciation of slavery, use of reason

The Spirit of the Laws, 1748!!!; comparative study of government

• Republic -- small states w/ citizen involvement

• Monarchy -- medium sized, rulers’ adherence to law

• Despotism -- lg. empires, fear & obedience

• England: Checks/Balances -- Separation of Powers

Voltaire and the EnlightenmentFrancois-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694-1778)

Middle class, classical, Jesuit educationExhile in England 2 yrs.

Criticism of Traditional ReligionPhilosophic Letters on the English, 1733. “If there were just one religion…”

Exaggerated English freedoms -- but criticized Fr.Notoriety = semi-retirement w/ mistress Calas affaire -- forced retrial

Candide, 1759Treatise on Toleration, 1763 -- examples of England and HollandDeism -- God the great “mechanic,” “watchmaker”

Inspired by Newtonian ideas

Diderot and the Encyclopedia

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)Artisan class backgroundFree-lance writerChristianity worst of all religions! Absurd doctrines and “atrocious dogma”World as “only a mass of molecules”

Encyclopedia, 28 volumesAttacked religious superstition and advocated tolerationLowered price helped to spread the ideas of the Enlightenment

Mary

Wollstonecraft

The New “Science of Man”Beginning of “Social Sciences”

Application of Natural Laws, Scientific MethodAttempt to discover “natural laws” governing human actions

David Hume (1711 – 1776)Treatise on Human Nature – observation & reflection will lead to a “science of man”

Physiocrats – early economistsFrançois Quesnay (1694-1774) -- court physician

• Leader of the Physiocrats – natural economic laws• Rejection of mercantilism -- Land, Agriculture as source

of wealth (gold, silver)• Supply and demand -- natural economic forces (economic

self-interest, etc.) would ultimately benefit society Gov’t interference = Laissez-Faire

Adam Smith & Laissez-Faire EconomicsAdam Smith (1723-1790)

The Wealth of Nations, 1776Attack on mercantilismThree Principals:

• Free trade -- Tariffs• Labor theory of value ( land, gold, etc)• Laissez Faire -- State interference

Government has only three basic functions• Protect society from invasion (army)• Defend individuals from injustice and oppression (police)• Keep up public works -- roads, canals, etc -- that private

individuals could not afford

Economic Liberalism 19th C.

The Later Enlightenment

Baron Paul d’Holbach (1723 – 1789)Strict Atheism, Materialism

System of Nature, 1770 -- everything in universe was matter in motion

Marie-Jean de Condorcet (1743 – 1794)Victim French Revolution & Reign of Terror

The Progress of the Human Mind

9 stages of human progress -- 10th = perfection through science & reason

Irony: died in a Fr. revolutionary prison!

Rousseau and the Social ContractJean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Paid lover of an older woman -- preferred countryside

Discourse on the Origins of the Inequality of Mankind:

• State of Nature = happiness.

• Concept of private property = enslavement of humanity + source of all war, crime, murder

• Made gov’t a necessary evil.

Social Contract, 1762; Tried to harmonize individual liberty with governmental authority

Concept of General Will & Participatory Democracy

Emile, 1762; important work on education -- emphasis on heart, sentiment, natural instincts

Contradictions -- own children; views on women

Major influence on the development of Romanticism

The “Women Question” in the Enlightenment

Most philosophes agreed that the nature of women make them inferior

Exeptions: Diderot & especially Voltaire: “women are capable of all that men are in intellectual affairs”

Mary Astell (1666-1731)A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, 1697Better education and equality in marriage

• “If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a state, how comes it to be so in a family? …If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?”

Mary Wollstonecraft – founder of modern European feminismVindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792Subjection of women by men wrong

• If arbitrary monarchical pwr is wrong, why arb. Pwr of men?• Enlightenment = reason: ♀ have reason → ♀ should have

equal rights in education, politics & economics.

Social Environment of the Philosophes

Salons -- place to get around strict social hierarchyBrings together writers & artists w/ aristocrats, gov’t officials, haute bourgeoisie

The Influence of WomenMarie-Thérèse de Geoffrin (1699 – 1777)

• Helped encyclopedists to complete work

Marquise du Deffand (1697 – 1780)

Drew criticism & declined during Fr. Rev.

Other social centers of the Enlightenment: coffeehouses, cafes, clubs, libraries, societies

Secret Societies: Freemasons -- international

Innovations in ArtRococo ArtAntoine Watteau (1684-1721)

Fragility and transitory nature of pleasure, love, and life

Baroque-Rococo architectural styleBalthasar Neumann (1687-1753)

Secular and spiritual interchangeable Continuing Popularity of Neoclassicism

Watteau

“La Suprise:”

1718

Lost, rediscovered

Sold 2008

€ 15 million!

Watteau

Fêtes

vénitiennes

(1718-1719)

Boucher: Marie-Louise O'Murphy (1737-1818)

mistress to Louis XV of France, circa 1752

Boucher

Venus Leaving

the Bath

1751

Fragonard

Young Girl Reading

1776

Fragonard: The Gardens of the Villa d'Este (ca. 1762/5)

François Boucher

Le Dejeuner

1739

Antoine Watteau: Pilgrimage to Cythrea, 1717

Jean-Honoré

Fragonard

1767

San Francisco church

San Miguel

Mexico

Vierzehnheiligen

Kirke

(So. Germany)

Balthasar

Neumann

Catherine Palace, Tsarskoye

Jacques-Louis David: Death of Socrates, 1787Jacques-Louis David: Bélisaire demandant l’aumone, 1781Antonio Canova: Psyche Revived by Love’s Kiss, 1787

David:

Andromache

Mourning

Hector

1783

Carnival in ParisPieter Bruegel the Elder, "The Fight between Carnival and Lent," 1559

Innovations in Music and Literature

Baroque MusicJohann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)Franz Joseph Haydn (1756-1809)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

The Development of the NovelSamuel Richardson (1689 – 1761)Henry Fielding (1707 – 1754)

The Writing of HistoryA broader scopeWeakness of philosophe-historians

The High Culture of the Eighteenth Century

High Culture Versus Popular CultureExpansion of Publishing and Reading Public

Development of magazines and newspapers for the general public

Education and UniversitiesSecondary schools

• Curriculum

Crime and Punishment

Punishment in the Eighteenth Century

Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794), On Crimes and Punishments

Punishment should serve only as deterrent

Punishment moved away from spectacle towards rehabilitation

The World of Medicine

Hierarchy of Practitioners Physicians

Surgeons

Apothecaries

Midwives

Faith healers

Popular CultureNature of Popular Culture

Collective and public

CarnivalIndulgence and release

Taverns and AlcoholCommunity centersCheap alcohol

Literacy and Primary EducationChapbooksLiteracy rates Primary education

Religion and the ChurchesThe Institutional Church

Conservative nature of mainstream churchesChurch-state relations“Nationalization” of the Catholic church

Toleration and Religious MinoritiesToleration and the Jews

• Experiences of Ashkenazic Jews• Experiences of Sephardic Jews• Some Enlightenment thinkers favored acceptance of

the Jews

Joseph II• Limited reforms toward the Jews

Map 17.2: Religious Populations of Eighteenth-Century Europe

Popular Religion in the Eighteenth Century

Catholic PietyCentrality of the local parish

Popular devotion

Protestant RevivalismPietism

John Wesley (1703-1791)• Methodist societies

Discussion QuestionsWhy was France the epicenter of the Enlightenment?Why did it emerge when it did?What were the social consequences, if any, of the Enlightenment?How did the Enlightenment shape ideas about crime and punishment?Did Europe become a more secular society over the course of the eighteenth century? If so, why?

Web Links

The European EnlightenmentInternet Sourcebook: The EnlightenmentThe Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’AlembertMary WollstonecraftCreating French CultureEighteenth-Century Resources: Science and Mathematics