Chapter 16.3 European History Terms

Rococo (1720-1780)

A popular style in Europe in the eighteenth century, known for its soft pastels, ornate interiors, sentimental portraits, and starry-eyed lovers protected by hovering cupids.

Deism

A popular Enlightenment era belief that there is a God, but that God isn't involved in people's lives or in revealing truths to prophets.

Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)

A French Protestant, or Huguenot who took refuge from government persecution in the tolerant Dutch Republic. He wrote Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697). Demonstrating that human beliefs had been extremely varied and very often mistaken, he concluded that nothing can ever be known beyond all doubt, a view known as skepticism.

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.

John Locke (1631-1704)

Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Second Treatise of Civil Gov't (1689); A physician and member of the Royal Society, brilliantly set forth a new theory about how human beings learn and form their ideas. He insisted that all ideas are derived from experience.The human mind at birth is like a blank tablet, or tabula rasa, on which the environment writes the individual's understanding and beliefs. Human development is therefore determined by education and social institutionalism, the idea that all human ideas and thoughts are produced as a result of sensory impressions. With his emphasis on the role of perception in the acquisition of knowledge, he provided a systematic justification of Bacon's emphasis on the importance of observation and experimentation. He also insisted on the sovereignty of the elected Parliament against the authority of the Crown.

Montesquieu (1689-1755)

He wrote The Persian Letters (1721) and The Spirit of the Laws (1748) and tried to use scientific method to find natural laws that govern the social and political relationships of human beings. He believed in the separation of powers and identified three types of governments: republics, despotism, and monarchies. He was famous for his satire and wit in his works.

Historical and Critical Dictionary

In this work, Bayle critically examined the religious belief and persecutions of the past. His very influential work was found in more private libraries of eighteenth-century France than any other book.

Salons

Regular social gathering held by talented and rich Parisians in their homes, where philosophes and their followers met to discuss literature, science, and philosophy.

The Social Contract - General Will & Popular Sovereignty

Rousseau's contribution to political theory was based on two fundamental concepts: the general will and popular sovereignty. According to Rousseau, the general will is sacred and absolute, reflecting the common interests of all the people, who have displaced the monarch as the holder of sovereign power. The general will is not necessarily the will of the majority, however. At times the general will may be the authentic, long-term needs of the people as correctly interpreted by a farsighted minority. Little noticed in its day, Rousseau's concept of the general will had a great impact on the political aspirations of the American and France Revolutions.

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.

Editors: Diderot & D'Alembert

They edited Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts. They set out to find coauthors who would examine the rapidly expanding whole of human knowledge. Even more fundamentally, they set out to teach people how to think critically and objectively about all matters. As they said, they wanted the Encyclopedia to "change the general way of thinking."

Spirit of Laws - Separation of Powers

This work by Montesquieu called for a separation of powers and heavily influenced the formation of American government. He believed that if political power was divided, then tyranny could be avoided. He applied the critical method to the problem of government.

Second Treatise of Civil Gov't - Constitutional Gov't

Written by John Locke, it contains the blueprint principles found in the Declaration of Independence. It believed the government that disregards it citizen's life, liberty, and property is a tyranny. Under a tyrannical government, citizens have a right to revolt.

The Persian Letters

Written by Montesquieu, this satirized contemporary institutions using letters purportedly written by two Persians visiting Europe. The letters described how European behavior contrasted with Persian life. It was an extremely influential social satire and considered the first major work of the French Enlightenment. It allowed Montesquieu a vantage point for criticizing existing practices and beliefs.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

A French man who believed that humans are naturally good and free and can rely on their instincts. He also advocated a democracy because he believed the government should exist to protect common good. Like other Enlightenment thinkers, he was passionately committed to individual freedom, but he attacked rationalism and civilization as destroying, rather than liberating, the individual. He also called for a rigid division of gender roles, believing women should be subordinate in social life. His ideals greatly influenced the early romantic movement, which rebelled against the culture of the Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century. Rousseau was both one of the most influential voices of the Enlightenment and, in his rejection of rationalism and social discourse, a harbinger of reaction against Enlightenment ideas.

David Hume (1711-1776)

A central figure in Edinburgh, who emphasized civic morality and religious skepticism. He had a powerful impact at home and abroad. Building on Locke's teachings on learning, he argued that the human mind is really nothing but a bundle of impressions. These impressions originate only in sensory experiences and our habits of joining these experiences together. Since our ideas ultimately reflect only our sensory experiences, our reason cannot tell us anything about questions that cannot be verified by sensory experience (in the form of controlled experiments or mathematics), such as the origin of the universe or the existence of God. Paradoxically, his rationalistic inquiry ended up undermining the Enlightenment's faith in the power of reason. He also popularized ideas of race.

Philosophe

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

Madame du Châtelet (1706-1749)

A woman who was educated in the sciences and trained as a mathematician and physicist. She published scientific articles and translations and helped stimulate interest in science in France by translating Newton's work from Latin to French. She was the long-time companion of Voltaire. Excluded from the Royal Academy of Sciences because she was a women, she had no doubt that women's limited role in science was due to their unequal education.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

Also known as François Marie Arouet; He was a French philosopher, who believed that freedom of speech was the best weapon against bad government. He also spoke out against the corruption of the French government, and the intolerance of the Catholic Church. He shared Montesquieu enthusiasm for English liberties and institutions. He pessimistically concluded that the best one could hope for in the way of government was a good monarch, since human beings "are very rarely worthy to govern themselves." He lavishly praised Louis XIV and conducted an enthusiastic correspondence with King Frederick the Great of Prussia, whom he admired as an enlightened monarch. Nor did he believe in social and economic equality, insisting that the idea of making servants equal to their masters was "absurd and impossible." The only realizable equality, Voltaire thought, was that "by which the citizen only depends on the laws which protect the freedom of the feeble against the ambitions of the strong."

Encyclopedia (1751-1765)

Edited by Diderot and D'Alembert; it survived initial resistance from the French government and the Catholic Church. Published between 1751 and 1772, it contained seventy-two thousand articles by leading scientists, writers, skilled workers, and progressive priests, and it treated every aspect of life and knowledge. Not every article was daring or original, but the overall effect was little short of revolutionary. Science and the industrial arts were exalted, religion and immortality questioned. Intolerance, legal injustice, and out-of-date social institutions were openly criticized. The encyclopedists were convinced that greater knowledge would result in greater human happiness, for knowledge was useful and made possible economic, social, and political progress. Summing up the new worldview of the Enlightenment, it was widely read, especially in less-expensive reprint editions, and it was extremely influential.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

German philosopher who thought that the mind comes into the world with certain inborn assumptions or predilections with which it molds experience. He wrote the Critique of Pure Reason and believed in uniting reason with experience, that the mind is a filter, that we experience things simply through our senses, and that reason is the source of morality; he was particularly prolific in the philosophy of ethics and metaphysics. He published a pamphlet in 1782 entitled What is Enlightenment? He answered, Sapere Aude [dare to know]! 'Have the courage to use your own understanding' is therefore the motto of enlightenment. He argued that if intellectuals were granted the freedom to exercise their reason publicly in print, enlightenment would almost surely follow. He was no revolutionary; he also insisted that in their private lives, individuals must obey all laws, not matter how unreasonable, and should be punished for "impertinent" criticism. He also tried to reconcile absolute monarchical authority and religious faith with a critical public sphere. He also popularized ideas of race and taught and wrote about "anthropology" and "geography."

Essay Concerning Human Understanding - Tabula Rasa

Written by John Locke, it stated that human mind has no innate ideas. What people know is not the world but the result of the interactions of the mind with the world. The concept of Tabula Rasa: everyone was born as a blank slate.