Chapter 17: The Eighteenth Century: An Age of Enlightenment

Pierre Bayle

A French Protestant philosopher who advocated for religious tolerance and believed the existence of multiple religions would help the state (1647-1706)

Bernard de Fontenelle

A French author who disseminated works on scientific topics during the Enlightenment (1657-1757)

Johann Sebastian Bach

A German composer and musician of the Baroque period (1685-1750)

Immanuel Kant

A German philosopher and the central figure of the Enlightenment; he argued that the fundamental concepts of the human mind construct the human experience (1724-1804)

Adam Smith

A Scottish philosopher who wrote the Wealth of Nations, which enunciated three basic principles of economics: free trade, value of labor, and noninterference from government (1723-1790)

Sephardic jews

A group of Jews expelled from Spain in the 15th century; many of whom migrated to Turkish lands, and some of them had settled in cities where they were relatively free to participate in the banking and commercial activities that Jews had practiced since the Middle Ages

Novel

A literary genre that became much more popular in the 18th century; a genre with no established rules and very open to experimentation

Voltaire

A middle-class Frenchman who advocated for religious tolerance, deism, and the natural philosophy of Newton (1694-1778)

Henry Fielding

A novelist who wrote about people without scruples who survived by their wits (1707-1754)

Samuel Richardson

A printer by trade and later writer who wrote Pamela, a famous novel that appealed to the growing cult of sensibility in the 18th century (1689-1761)

Franz Joseph Haydn

A prominent and prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period (1732-1809)

Mari-Jean de Condorcet

A victim of the Reign of Terror who was in hiding while writing The Progress of the Human Mind, which stated that human perfectibility is in reality indefinite (1743-1794)

Baron Paul d'Holbach

A wealthy German aristocrat and uncompromising atheist who preached a doctrine of strict atheism and materialism

Romanticism

An intellectual movement that dominated Europe at the beginning of the 19th century; The movement focused on the balance between heart and mind, between sentiment and reason

John Wesley

An ordained Anglican minister who experienced a deep spiritual crisis and underwent a mystical experience; he preached to the masses and appealed to the lower classes (1703-1791)

Neoclassicism

Artistic movement that emerged in France in the late 18th century; movement that recaptured the dignity and simplicity of classical style of ancient Greece and Rome

Joseph II

Austrian ruler who passed the Toleration Patent of 1781, which recognized Catholicism's public practice, granted Lutherans, Calvinists, and Greek Orthodox the right to worship privately

Economic liberalism

Belief in organizing the economy on individualist and voluntarist lines, and the greatest possible number of economic decisions are made by individuals

George Frederick Handel

British Baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos (1685-1759)

Mary Astell

Daughter of wealthy English coal merchant; she advocated for better education for woman and marriage quality (1666-1731)

Diderot

French atheist who wrote the Encyclopedia and spread the ideas of the Enlightenment (1713-1784)

Jacques-Louis David

French neoclassical painter who stayed away from the frivolity of the Rococo style and focused on severity and austerity (1748-1825)

Montesquieu

French nobleman who advocated for natural laws, abolition of slavery, and religious tolerance; he wrote the The Spirit of the Laws , which illustrated the merits of the separation of power (1689-1755)

Jean-Jacques Rousseou

French philosopher who paid his schooling by becoming a paid lover to an older woman; he wrote the Discourse, which stated that the government is a necessary evil and celebrated the ideals of the social contract and the general will (1712-1778)

Philosophe

French term referring to the intellectuals of the Enlightenment

Balthasar Neumann

German Baroque-Rococo architect and military engineer (1687-1753)

Pietism

German response to desire for a deeper personal devotion to God that began in the 17th century by a group of German clerics who wished their religion to be more personal

Protestant revivalism

Increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a church congregation or society

Cesare Beccaria

Italian philosophe who argued that punishments should serve only as deterrents, not as exercises of brutality; he wrote On Crimes and Punishments (1738-1794)

Francois Quesnay

Leading physiocrat and French court physician who claimed they would discover the natural economic laws that governed human society; he believed land is the basis of wealth, not money (1694-1774)

Antoine Watteau

Rococo artist who reflected the upper-class life and the element of interior sadness (1684-1721)

David Hume

Scottish philosopher and pioneering social scientist who studied economics (1711-1776)

Jesuit Order

Society of Jesus, which is a male religious congregation of the Catholic Church that focused on education; they were reluctantly dissolved in 1773 by Clement XIV under the demand of Spain and France when the order got too politically involved in the New world

Ashkenazic Jews

The largest group of jews who lived in eastern Europe; they were restricted in movement, forbidden to own land or hold many jobs, forced to pay burdensome special taxes, and also subject to periodic outbursts of popular wrath

High culture

The literary and artistic world of the educated and wealthy ruling classes

Religious skepticism

The questioning of religion by some Europeans who sees religion as a hindrance to scientific and social developments

Popular culture

The written and unwritten lore of the masses, most of which is passed down orally

James Cook

a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy who made detailed maps and wrote about new lands such as Australia and the Hawaiian Islands (1728-1779)

Enlightenment

a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition

Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf

a German religious and social reformer and bishop of the Moravian Church who spread the teachings of pietism; he focused on the mystical experience and rejected rationalism in religion

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

a child prodigy and prolific and influential composer of the Classical era who could not find a patron and died with a massive debt (1756-1791)

Methodism

a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity which derive their inspiration from the life and teachings of John Wesley

Baroque music

a heavily ornamented style of music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750, which came out of the Renaissance

Gymnasium

a type of school stemmed from German-speaking lands with a strong emphasis on academic learning, and providing advanced secondary education

Laissez-faire

abstention by governments from interfering in the workings of the free market

Rococo

an 18th-century artistic movement and style that focused on ornate and used light colors, asymmetrical designs, curves, and gold; a less strict and more playful style than Baroque

Mary Wollstonecraft

an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights who wrote Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1759-1797)

Salons

elegant drawing rooms in the urban houses of the wealthy where philosophers and guests meet to engage in ideas of the philosophes

Classical music

music written in the European tradition during a period lasting approximately from 1750 to 1830, when forms such as the symphony, concerto, and sonata were standardized

Pogroms

organized massacre of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe; this made Jewish existence precarious and dependent on the favor of their territorial rulers

Parish church

the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches in England; parochial church

Cosmopolitanism

the ideology that all human beings belong to a single community, based on a shared morality

Cultural relativism

the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture (what many people today fail to understand, smh)