Chapter 16: Enlightment

James Beattie

(1735-1803) Scottish Philosopher. Challenged claims of white superiority. Pointed out that Europeans had started out as savage as nonwhites and that many non-European peoples in the Americas, Asia, and Africa had achieved high levels of civilization.

The Different Races of Man

(1775) Immanuel Kant shared and elaborated Hume's views about race claiming that the white inhabitants of northern Germany were the closest descendants of the supposedly original race of "white brunette" people.

History of the Two Indies

Abbe Raynal, fiercely attacked slavery and the abused of European colonization

General Will

According to Rousseau the general will is sacred and absolute, reacting the common interests of the people who have displaced the monarch as the holder of ultimate power.

public sphere

An idealized intellectual space that emerged in Europe during the Enlightenment, where the public came together to discuss important issues relating to society, economics, and politics.

Enlightenment

The influential intellectual and cultural movement of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that introduced a new worldview based on the use of reason, the scientific method, and progress.

Reading Revolution

The transition in Europe from a society where literacy consisted of patriarchal and communal reading of religious texts to a society where literacy was commonplace and reading material was broad and diverse.

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (book)

Theodicy - declares that ours must be the best of all possible worlds because it was created by an omnipotent and benevolent God

Rousseau

believed people in their natural state were basically good but that they were corrupted by the evils of society, especially the uneven distribution of property

Cesare Beccaria

believed that punishment should fit the crime, in speedy and public trials, and that capital punishment should be done away with completely

John Locke (1632-1704)

philosopher; believed in Tabula Rasa (empiricism)

Pierre Bayle

(1647-1706), skeptic, French Huguenot who found refuge in the Netherlands, examined religious persecutions and beliefs of the past in his Historical and Critical Dictionary, concluded that nothing can be known beyond all doubt, believed in open minded toleration

Philosophes

A group of French intellectuals who proclaimed that they were bringing the light of knowledge to their fellow creatures in the Age of Enlightenment.

Gabrielle-Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil

A noble woman with a passion for science. Invited Voltaire to live in her country house. Beloved women's limited role in science was due to their unequal education.

Rationalism

A secular, critical way of thinking in which nothing was to be accepted on faith, and everything was to be submitted to reason.

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

Believed that the universe consists of indivisible units called monads. God had created the arrangement of the monads, and therefore this was the best of all possible worlds. If only a few minute monads were experienced, petites perceptions resulted, which were unconscious. If enough minute monads were experienced at the same time, apperception occurred, which was a conscious experience.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

Early enlightenment thinker excommunicated from the Jewish religion for his concept of a *deterministic universe*. He was a Dutch Jewish philosopher who borrowed Descartes's emphasis on rationalism and his methods of deductive reasoning, but rejected the French thinker's mind-body dualism.

John Locke (book about human learning)

Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

Freedom of speech and Religious Tolerance- a recognition of people's right to hold differing religious beliefs

Montesquieu

French political philosopher who advocated the separation of executive and legislative and judicial powers (1689-1755)

Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts

Greatest Achievement of the Philosophes, was written to "change the general way of thinking," science was praised and religion and immortality were questioned, criticized were intolerence, legal injustice, and out of date social institutions. Written by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

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

Pierre Bayle (book)

Historical and Critical Dictionary

Tabula Rasa

John Locke's concept of the mind as a blank sheet ultimately bombarded by sense impressions that, aided by human reasoning, formulate ideas.

Cesare Baccaria (book)

On Crimes and Punishments

David Hume

Scottish philosopher whose sceptical philosophy restricted human knowledge to that which can be perceived by the senses (1711-1776)

Montesquieu (book)

The Persian Letters - written by Montesquieu; described a Persian in France writing to another back in the middle east and compared Louis XIV to the Persian ruler; criticized French government

Rousseau (book)

The Social Contract - based on two ideas, the general will and popular sovereignty

Montesquieu (political book)

The Spirit of Laws - This work by Montesquieu called for a separation of powers and heavily influenced the formation of American government

Adam Smith (1723-1790) (books)

Theory of Moral Sentiments - argued that the thriving commercial life of the eighteenth century produced civic virtue though the values of competition, fair play, and individual autonomy An inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - attacked the laws and regulations that, he argued, prevented commerce from reaching its full capacity

John Locke (Political Book)

Two Treatises of Civil Government - insisted on the sovereignty of the elected Parliament against the authority of the Crown

Rococo

Very elaborate and ornate (in decorating or metaphorically, as in speech and writing); relating to a highly ornate style of art and architecture in 18th-century France

immanuel Kant (book)

What is Enlightenment? - argued that if intellectuals were granted the freedom to exercise their reason publicly in print, enlightenment would almost surely follow

Salon

a social gathering of intellectuals and artists

Senasationalism

the idea that all human ideas and thoughts are produced as a result of sensory impressions