Chapter 18Part 3

The Enlightenment

Women in the Enlightenment

Women played a major role in the Salon Movement

Many of the best and brightest of the Enlightenment assembled in salons to discuss major issues of the day

Hosted by wealthy women who sometimes took part in discussions AND were patrons as well:

Women in the Enlightenment

Madame de Geoffren: A big patron of Diderot’s Encyclopedia

Louise de Warens: Hostess and patron

Mary Wollestoncraft: (England) promoted political and educational equality for women

Women

The Philosophes favored increased rights and education for women

The Later EnlightenmentLate 18th Century

Became more skeptical

Baron Paul d’Holbach: System of Nature

Argued that humans were like machines Our behavior, beliefs were completely

determined by outside forces Philosophy: Determinism He was an atheist (undermined the

Enlightenment)

David Hume 1711-1776

Also undermined the Enlightenment’s emphasis on Reason

Argued against faith in both natural law AND faith (religious)

Claimed that human ideas were merely the result of sensory experience and so…human reason could not go beyond what was experienced through the senses

Jean de Condorcet 1743-1794

Progress of the Human Mind Identified 9 stages of human

progress that had already occurred and predicted that the 10th stage would bring perfection

His utopian ideas undermined the legitimacy of the Enlightenment

Rousseau

Attacked rationalism and civilization as destroying rather than liberating the individual

The Father of Romantic Movement which celebrated emotion, instinct…nature (but not natural law or reason)

Immanuel Kant 1724-1804

The greatest German philosopher of the Enlightenment

Separated science and morality into two separate branches

Science could describe nature but could not provide a guide for morality (limits to science)

Immanuel Kant

The Categorical Imperative: was an intuitive instinct placed by God in the human conscience

Believed that both ethical sense and aesthetic appreciation in human beings were beyond the knowledge of science

Reason is just a function of the mind having no content in and of itself

Classical Liberalism

The political outgrowth of the Enlightenment

Belief in liberty of the individual and equality before the law BUT NOT DEMOCRACY

“Natural Rights” philosophy played a profound role in the American and French Revolutions

Classical Liberalism

Impact of Locke and Montesquieu was obvious in the American Constitution and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man

Rousseau’s “General Will” influenced the French Revolution after 1791 (the Reign of Terror)

Classical Liberalism

Belief in laissez-faire capitalism (Adam Smith)

Government should not interfere in the economy

Opposite of Mercantilism (Hobbes)

Classical Liberalism

Belief in progress through reason and education

Progress: human dignity and happiness (Declaration of Independence: Pursuit of Happiness)

Classical Liberalism

Religious toleration Freedom of speech and the press Just punishments for crimes Equality before the law

Reaction to Rational Religion

German Pietism: argued for spiritual conversion, personal religious experience…back to faith

Methodism: taught that humans needed spiritual regeneration and that a moral life would demonstrate that one was “Born Again”

Founder: John Wesley

Religious Reaction to the Enlightenment

New Christian groups opposed the Enlightenment

Fear that spirituality was on the decline due to the teaching of secular and deist views

Wanted to recapture spiritual and emotional zeal

Reaction to Rational Religion

Jansenism: (Catholic sect in France who had incorporated predestination into their beliefs…had been persecuted by Louis XIV)

Argued against the idea of an uninvolved and impersonal God

In the U.S.: The Second Great Awakening