Chapter 18: Toward a New World View

Frederick II

"Frederick The Great"-1712-1786;King of Prussia, aggressive in foreign affairs. Used military to increase power. Encouraged religious tolerance and legal reform.

the public

Economic and social elites, many of which were joined together in the eighteenth-century concept of ___________

Immanuel Kant

The greatest German philosopher of the age, he argued in 1784 that if serious thinkers were granted the freedom to exercise their reason publicly in print, then enlightenment would almost surely follow.

tabula rasa

a young mind not yet affected by experience (according to John Locke)

rococo art

art of the early 18th century; light pastel toned, swirling compositions that seem placed in an idyllic land of a golden age

Two Treatises on Government

book publish by John Locke, set forth idea that people have certain rights and the gov. is formed to protect those rights, life liberty property, he believed ppl were justified in rebelling if this was violated

Johannes Kepler

discovered that the paths of the planets around the sun are elliptical rather that circular

salons

gatherings in which intellectual and political ideas were exchanged during the Enlightenment

Parlement of Paris

most powerful court that competed with the monarchy for political power, controlled by french nobles

deductive reasoning

reasoning in which a conclusion is reached by stating a general principle and then applying that principle to a specific case.

law of inertia

rest is not objects natural state, objects continue in motion forever unless stoped by an outside force, galileo

judicial review

review by a court of law of actions of a government official or entity or of some other legally appointed person or body or the review by an appellate court of the decision of a trial court

constitution

the body of fundamental laws setting out the principles, structures, and processes of a government

rationalism

the doctrine that all knowledge is expressible in self-evident propositions or their consequences.

The Encyclopedia

The writers of _____________ showed that human beings could use the process of reasoning to expand human knowledge.

skepticism

doubt about the truth of something

Madame Geoffrin

Hosted one of the most famous salons in paris over the objections of her much older aristocratic husband. Called the godmother of the encyclopedia, she inherited a large fortune after her husbands death and contributed a significant sum to save that publication.

Pugachev's rebellion

Prior to this, Catherine the Great had condemned serfdom in theory. However, it put an end to any illusions she might have had about reforming the system. It was also stomped out quickly because it proved no match for Catherine's noble-led regular army

Aristotelian world-view

The world consisted of ten separate transparent crystal spheres.

Francis Bacon

(1561-1626) English politician, writer. Formalized the empirical method.

empiricism

(philosophy) the doctrine that knowledge derives from experience

Louis XV

(r. 1715-1774) inherited throne at age 5; great-grandson of Louis XIV; duke of Orleans governed until 1723 for him; 1748: appointed a finance minister who decreed a 5% income tax on every individual-protest-tax dropped; emergency war taxes established after 7 Years' War-Parlement of Paris challenged Louis XV-taxes withdrew-Louis finally had a determined defense of his absolutist inheritance-1768: appointed a tough career official, Rene de Maupeou, as chancellor and ordered him to crush opposition-abolished existing parlements and created new parlement of royal officials-system would have succeeded but Louis died in 1774

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A Swiss philosopher who, like other Enlightenment thinkers, was passionately committed to individual freedom. Unlike them, however, he attacked rationalism and civilization as destroying, rather than liberating, the individual

checks and balances

A system that allows each branch of government to limit the powers of the other branches in order to prevent abuse of power

Principia

A.K.A. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Written by Newton in 1684. Explained law of gravitation and 3 laws of motion.

general will

According to Rousseau, the _____________ is sacred and absolute, reflecting the common interests of all the people, who have displaced the monarch as the holder of the sovereign power.

Voltaire

French writer who was the embodiment of 18th century Enlightenment (1694-1778)

Baron Paul d'Holbach

Argued that human beings were machines completely determined by outside forces. His aggressive atheism and determinism, which were coupled with deep hostility towards Christianity and other religions, dealt the unity of the Enlightenment movement a severe blow.

David Hume

Argued that the human mind is really nothing but a bundle of impressions. These impressions originate only in sense experiences and our habits of joining these experiences together.

Silesia

Austrian province seized by Frederick II of Prusia

On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres

Book written by Copernicus which explained his heliocentric theory and contradicted the geocentric theory

Galileo Galilei

Created modern experimental method. Formulated the law of inertia. Tried for heresy and forced to recant. Saw Jupiter's moons. Wrote Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World

Isaac Newton

English Scientist. 3 Laws of motion. Mathematics Principal of Natural Philosophy (1687).

enlightened absolutism

European rulers who embraced many of the philosophes' reforms, monarchical government dedicated to rational strengthening of central absolutist administration at cost of lesser political power centers

Seven Years War

Fought between France/Russia and Prussia- Frederick kept fighting against heavy odds and was saved when Peter III took Russian throne and called off the attack against Frederick

separation of powers

Idea created by Montesquieu, argued that despotism could be avoided with _____________, when political power is divided and shared by a variety of classes and legal estates holding unequal rights and privileges.

Tycho Brahe

Influenced by Copernicus; Built observatory and collected data on the locations of stars and planets for over 20 years; His limited knowledge of mathematics prevented him from making much sense out of the data.

Gresham College

Located in England. Leading place for the advancement of science. First time scientists had a honored roll in society; center of scientific activity.

Cartesian dualism

Separation of mind and matter, allowed something to be investigated independently by reason

Bernard de Fontenelle

Set out to make science witty and entertaining for a broad nonscientific audience; wrote "Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds"

philosophes

Social critics of the eighteenth century who subjected social institutions and practices to the test of reason.

state of nature

The basis of natural rights philosophy; a state of nature is the condition of people living in a situation without man-made government, rules, or laws.

deism

The religion of the Enlightenment (1700s). Followers believed that God existed and had created the world, but that afterwards He left it to run by its own natural laws. Denied that God communicated to man or in any way influenced his life.

War of Austrian Succession

This war was over the inheritance of the throne by Maria Theresa.

Catherine the Great

This was the empress of Russia who continued Peter's goal to Westernizing Russia, created a new law code, and greatly expanded Russia

Joseph II

This was the ruler of the Habsburgs that controlled the Catholic Church closely, granted religious toleration and civic rights to Protestants and Jews, and abolished serfdom

Marquis de Condorcet

Transformed the enlightenment belief in gradual, hard won progress into fanciful Utopianism. Hypothesized and tracked nine stages of human progress that had already occurred and predicted the tenth stage would bring perfection

Spirit of Laws

Written by Montesquieu, a complex comparative study of republics, monarchies, and despotisms - a great pioneering inquiry in the emerging social sciences believed in the separation of powers

Madame du Chatelet

a French noblewoman who became important to mathematics as the translator of Newton's Principia.

Enlightenment

a movement that advocated the use of reason in the reappraisal of accepted ideas and social institutions

social contract

the idea that an entire society agrees to be governed by its general will, the notion that society is based on an agreement between government and the governed in which people agree to give up some rights in exchange for the protection of others

Copernican hypothesis

the idea that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe; this had enormous scientific and religious implications.

Maria Theresa

was Empress of Austria. She worked to centralize the Austrian Empire and strengthen the power of the state. She worked hard to alleviate the conditions of serfs

Baron de Montesquieu

wrote The Spirit of the Laws : developed the idea of the separation of powers into three branches of government