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Western Civilizations, 3rd Brief Edition: A W. W. Norton StudySpace
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In This Chapter
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Chapter 17
The Enlightenment
Chapter Study Outline
Introduction
The Calas Case and Voltaire (1762)
Intolerance and ignorance
Fanaticism and infamy
Enlightenment concerns
The danger of unchecked and arbitrary authority
The value of religious toleration
The importance of law, reason, and human dignity
The Foundations of the Enlightenment
An eighteenth-century phenomenon
Basic characteristics
The power of human reason
Self-confidence
Newtonian methods had wide application
"Dare to know!" (Kant)
Reason needed autonomy and freedom
The "Holy Trinity": Bacon, Newton, and Locke
Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
Education and environment
Sense perception and the tabula rasa
The goodness and perfectibility of humanity
Moral improvement and social progress
The organization of knowledge
The scientific method
Collected evidence on the rise and fall of nations
Compared government constitutions
The "cultural project" of the Enlightenment
Practical, applied knowledge
Spreading knowledge and free public discussion
"To change the common way of thinking" (Diderot)
Writing for a larger audience
Academies sponsored essay contests
The expansion of literacy
The first "public sphere"
The World of the Philosophes
The philosophe
A free thinker unhampered by the constraints of religion or dogma in any form
Voltaire (born François Marie Arouet, 1694-1778)
The personification of the Enlightenment
Life
Educated by Jesuits
Spent time in the Bastille for libel
Temporary exile in England
Great admirer and popularizer of all things English (especially Newton and Locke)
Philosophical Letters (1734)
Religious and political liberties of the British
British open-mindedness and empiricism
Admiration for English culture and politics and respect for scientists
Religious toleration
Observations on England as criticisms of France
écrasez l'infâme"crush infamy" (all forms of repression, fanaticism, and bigotry)
Loathed religious bigotry
Did not oppose religion sought to rescue morality from narrow dogma
Common sense and simplicity
Contacts with Frederick of Prussia and Catherine the Great
Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Life
Born of a noble family, inherited an estate
Served as magistrate in the parlement of Bordeaux
A cautious jurist
The Persian Letters (1721)
Series of letters between two Persian visitors to France
Likened French absolutism to Persian despotism
Thinly-veiled criticism of France
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
A work in comparative historical sociology
Newtonian in its empirical approach
How do structures and institutions shape laws?
Different forms of government what spirit characterized them?
Republicvirtue
Monarchyhonor
Despotismfear
Spelled out the dangerous drift toward despotism in France
Admired the British system of separate and balanced powers
Checks and balances
Diderot and the Encyclopedia
A vast compendium of human knowledge
Grandest statement of the philosophes' goals
Scientific analysis applied to human reasonhappiness and progress
Guided by Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and Jean d'Alembert (1717-1783)
Seventeen large volumes of text, eleven volumes of illustrations (1751-1772)
Purpose was to change the general way of thinking
Demonstrated how the application of science could promote progress
Heavy circulation despite the high price
Government revoked permission to publish for trying to "propagate materialism" (1759)
Internationalization of Enlightenment Themes
The "party of humanity"
French books widely distributed and read
Cosmopolitan movement of ideas
Enlightenment themes: humanitarianism and tolerance
Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)
On Crimes and Punishments (1764)
General themes: arbitrary power, reason, and human dignity
Attacked the view that punishment represented society's vengeance on the criminal
Legitimate rationale for punishment was to maintain social order, prevent other crimes
Opposed torture and the death penalty
Religious toleration
End religious warfare and the persecution of heretics and religious minorities
Few philosophes were atheists (materialists)
Most were deistsGod as "divine clockmaker"
Most philosophes viewed Judaism and Islam as backward
Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781)
Treated Jews sympathetically
Nathan the Wise (1779)
Three great monotheistic religions are three versions of the same truth
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)
Took up the question of Jewish identity
On the Religious Authority of Judaism (1783)
Defended Jewish communities against anti-Semitic policies
Economics, government, and administration
Rising states and empires made economic issues important
The French physiocrats
Mercantilist policies were misguided
Real wealth came from land and agricultural production; advocated a simplified tax system
Laissez-fairewealth and goods to circulate without government interference
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
Disagreed with the centrality of agriculture
Central issue was the productivity of human labor
Mercantile restrictions did not create real economic health
The "invisible hand" of the marketplace
Rational individuals should pursue their interests rationally
The stages of economic growth
Following the "obvious and simple system of natural liberty"
Empire and Enlightenment
The economics of empire and the profitability of colonies
New world of natural humanity and simplicity
The slave trade and humanitarianism, individual rights, and natural law
Abbé Guillaume Thomas Francois Raynal
Philosophical History . . . of Europeans in the Two Indies (1770)
A total history of colonization, natural history, exploration, and commerce
Industry and trade brought improvement and progress
Condemned the Spanish in Mexico and Peru, the Portuguese in Brazil, the English in North America
A good government required checks and balances
The problem? Europeans in the New World had unlimited power
Slavery and the Atlantic world
Atlantic slave trade hit its peak in the eighteenth century
For Raynal and Diderot, slavery defied natural law and natural freedom
A condemnation of slavery in a metaphorical sense
Slavery as a violation of self-government
Few philosophes advocated the total abolition of slavery
Exploration and the Pacific world
Mapping the Pacific and scientific missions
Louis-Anne de Bougainville (1729-1811)
Sent by the French government to the South Pacific in 1767
Looked for a new route to China and new spices
Described Tahiti
Captain James Cook (1728-1779)
Two trips to the South Pacific
Charted coasts of New Zealand, New Holland, New Hebrides, and Hawaii
Explored the Antarctic continent, the Bering Sea, and the Arctic Ocean
Travel accounts of these voyages read by a large audience eager for such information
The impact of the scientific missions
The eighteenth century fascinated by stories of new cultures
Diderot, Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville (1772)
Tahitians as original human beings
Humanity in its natural state
Uninhibited sexuality and freedom from religious dogma
Simplicity versus overcivilized Europeans
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)
Spent five years in Spanish America
Personal Narratives of Travels (1814-1819)
Toward Darwin and evolutionary change
The Radical Enlightenment Rousseau and Wollstonecraft
How revolutionary was the Enlightenment?
The world of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
General observations
Quarreled with and contradicted other philosophes
Attacked privilege and believed in the goodness of humanity
Introduced the notion of "sensibility" (the cult of feeling)
The first to speak of popular sovereignty and democracy
The most utopian of the philosophes
The Social Contract (1762)
"Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains"
The origins of government
The legitimacy of government
Social inequality and private property
Legitimate authority arises from the people alone
Sovereignty should not be divided among different branches of the government
Exercising sovereignty transformed the nation
The national community would be united by the "general will"
Citizens bound by mutual obligation rather than coercive laws
Citizens' common interests represented in the whole
Emile (1762)
Story of a boy educated in the "school of nature"
Children should not be forced to reason early in life
The aim was moral autonomy and good citizenship
Women useful as mothers and wives only
"Natural" is better, simpler, uncorrupted
Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse (1761)
Seventy editions in thirty years
Domestic and maternal virtues
Humans ruled by their hearts as much as their heads
Middle-class and aristocratic sensibility: spontaneous feelings
The Enlightenment and gender
Education as key to social progresseducation for all?
Were men and women different?
Were gender differences natural, or socially created?
The world of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
Rousseau's sharpest critic
A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
Republican ideas
Spoke against inequality and artificial distinctions of rank, birth, or wealth
Society ought to seek "the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness"
Women had the same innate capacity for reason and self-government as men
Virtue the same thing for men and women
Relations between the sexes ought to be based on equality
The family
The legal inequalities of marriage law
Women taught to be dependent and seductive in order to win husbands
Education has to promote liberty and self-reliance
The common humanity of men and women
The natural division of labor between men and women
Hinted that women might have political rights
The Enlightenment and Eighteenth-Century Culture
The book trade
The expansion of printing and print culture
An international and clandestine book trade
Growth of daily newspapers
British press was relatively free of restrictions
Censorship only made books more expensive
"Philosophical books"subversive literature of all kinds
The eighteenth-century literary underground
High culture, new elites, and the "public sphere"
Networks of readers and new forms of sociability and discussion
Elite or high culture was small but cosmopolitan
Joined together members of the nobility and wealthy members of the middle classes
"Learned societies"
American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia)
Select Society of Edinburgh
Organized intellectual life outside universities
Provided libraries, meeting places for discussion, published journals
Elites also met in academies
Royal Society of London
French Academy of Literature
Berlin Royal Academy
Fostered a sense of common purpose and seriousness
Salons
Organized by well-connected and learned aristocratic women
Brought together men and women of letters with members of the aristocracy
Located in all major cities
Other societies
Masonic Lodges
Secret societies with elaborate rituals
Egalitarian
Pledged themselves to rational thought in all human affairs
Coffeehousesaided the circulation of new ideas
The public sphere and public opinion
The ability to think and criticize freely
Effect on politicsmoving politics beyond the court
Middle-class culture and reading
Shopkeepers, small merchants, lawyers, and professionalsa different reading public
Bought and borrowed books
Targeted middle-class women
Popularized Enlightenment treatises on education and the mind
Popularity of the novel
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) Pamela and Clarissa
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) Tom Jones
Fanny Burney (1752-1840) Evelina
Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)The Romance of the Forest
Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) Castle Rackrent
Jane Austen (1775-1817)Pride and Prejudice and Emma
Popular culture: urban and rural
Literacy
Varied by gender, class, and location
Greater literacy in northern Europe
Ran high in towns and cities
Broadsides, woodcuts, prints, drawings, cartoons
The availability of new reading material
The blue booksinexpensive, small paperbacks
Traditional popular literature
Short catechisms
Tales of miracles
The lives of saints
Networks of sociability
Guild organizations offered discussion and companionship
Street theater and singers
Market days and village festivals
Oral and literate cultures overlapped
The philosophes and popular culture
The Enlightenment was an urban phenomenon
Looked at popular culture with distrust and ignorance
Eighteenth-century music
The last phase of the Baroque
Bach and Handel
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Remained a German provincial his entire life
A church musician at Leipzig
Supplied music for Sunday and holiday services
An ardent Protestant, unaffected by the secularism of the Enlightenment
George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)
Public-pleasing cosmopolitan
Established himself in London
The oratoriomusical drama to be performed in concert
The Messiah
Hayden and Mozart
The classical style
Imitating classical principles of order, clarity, and symmetry
The string quartet and the symphony
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Began composing at age four, a keyboard virtuoso at six
Wrote his first symphony at age nine
Attracted attention across Europe
Freemasonry
Died relatively poor
The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Spent his life with a wealthy Austro-Hungarian family
Moved to London commercial market for culture
The father of the symphony
Opera
A seventeenth-century creation
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Combined music with theater
Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787)
Came to Paris from Austria
The musical tutor of Marie Antoinette
Simplified arias, emphasized dramatic action
High entertainment for the French court
Aristocratic and court patronage
Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais (1732-1799)
Author of The Marriage of Figaro
Satirized the French nobility
Conclusion
Science as a form of knowledge
Raising problems to public awareness
The language of the Enlightenment