The Enlightenment- 2/2- Economic/Women

"invisible hand"

Phrase coined by Adam Smith to refer to the self-regulating nature of a free marketplace.

David Hume

-argued against faith in both natural law and religion. Human ideas were merely result of sensory experience. Undermined Enlightenment's emphasis on reason.

Olympe de Gouges

-wrote "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen" (1791)- during French Revolution, fought for gender equality- was beheaded in 1793

salon movement

Informal gatherings, usually sponsored by middle-class or aristocratic women, that provided a forum for new ideas and an opportunity to establish new intellectual contacts among supporters of the Enlightenment in the 18th century. These informal gatherings gave intellectual life an anchor outside the royal court and church-dominated universities and afforded an opportunity to test ideas or present unpublished works.

Madame de Geoffrin

famous hostess of salon, she acted as mediator and financial patroness and invited foreign thinkers and rulers to her salons.

Baron Paul d'Holbach

wrote " System of Nature"- his staunch atheism, determinism, and attacks on Christianity undermined the Enlightenment

Jean de Condorcet

wrote "Progress of the Human Mind"-utopian ideas also undermined legitimacy of Enlightenment ideas-identified 9 stages of human progress and predicted 10th stage would bring perfection

Francois Quesnay

(1694-1774) French economist. Quesnay was the undisputed leader of the Physiocrats, the first systematic school of economic thought. Among its tenets were the economic and moral righteousness of laissez-faire policies and the notion that land was the ultimate source of all wealth.

Classical liberalism

A term given to the philosophy of John Locke and other 17th and 18th century advocates of the protection of individual rights and liberties by limiting government power.

Mary Wollstonecraft

British feminist of the eighteenth century who argued for women's equality with men, even in voting, in her 1792 "Vindication of the Rights of Women."

physiocrats

Early advocates of laissez-faire economics This was the group of economists who believed that the wealth of a nation was derived solely from the value of its land

Immanuel Kant

Greatest German philosopher of Enlightenment-separated science and morality into separate branches of knowledge-science could describe nature, it could not provide a guide for morality. Wrote "Critique of Pure Reason"

Madame de Stael

Necker's daughter, she was raised on Emilean principles, and became a salon hostess and feminist. She was critical of Napoleon and was a fan of German Romanticism. Freedom.

laissez faire

Policy allowing business to operate with little or no government interference

Adam Smith

Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. Seen today as the father of Capitalism. Wrote On the Wealth of Nations (1776) One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Marquis de Condorcet

only writer of the Enlightenment to go so far as to support female suffrage via Persian Letters (1721)- increased rights for women but no change to family roles