The Enlightenment
description
Transcript of The Enlightenment
The EnlightenmentCauses of Revolution
What are the main ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers?
How do they challenge the powers of Absolute Monarchs?
John LockeThomas Hobbes
Voltaire
Objectives
Conclusion & Connections
So…◦What are the main ideas of the Enlightenment
philosophers?
◦How do they challenge the powers of Absolute Monarchs?
Thomas Hobbes
Leviathan (1651)
Englishman
Man motivated by power & fear –> needed an all-powerful sovereign◦ Without one, life would
be “solitary, nasty, poor, brutish & short”
Politics as a science
John LockeIndividual must become
rational, man innately good – TABULA RASA
Virtue can be learned & practiced
“Divine right of kings” is nonexistent
“Two Treaties of Civil Government”
Natural rights given to all◦Life, liberty & property
Favored a republicSocial contract btw people &
government (what is influenced by this idea??)
Baron de Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat)
1st of the French Philosophes“The Spirit of the Laws” (1749)Separation of powers ensures freedom &
liberty3 types of government= monarchy,
despotism & republic
Voltaire (AKA Francois Marie Arouet)
Author & poet
“Candide” (1759)
Men are born equal-virtue makes the difference
Directly critiqued French crown so fled
Jean Jacques Rousseau
“The Social Contract” (1762) Virtue exists in nature, not in
society“Man is born free, yet
everywhere he is in chains.”
Government is necessary Liberty, equality, fraternity
(brotherhood) General will= with each other,
not rulers Republican government with
direct democracy◦No legal protections for
individual rights Influenced French
revolutionaries & Karl Marx
Mary Wollstonecraft
• Vindication of the Rights of Woman
•English writer, philosopher
•Men & women are equal
Salons
Aftermath…Revolution?
New forms of civil society arose
Reform & critique couldn’t stop
Birth of the “individual”◦Natural rights
Implications??