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anchor outside the royal court and church-dominated universities and afforded an opportunity to test ideas or present unpublished works.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