European Enlightenment: Difference between revisions
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<nowiki> === </nowiki>section title: first, last, alphabetical by last name | <nowiki> === </nowiki>section title: first, last, alphabetical by last name | ||
* dates | * dates | ||
* core ideas | * famous for: | ||
* works | * background: | ||
* core ideas: | |||
* works: | |||
* legacy: | |||
=== Cesare Beccaria === | === Cesare Beccaria === | ||
* 1738-1794 | * 1738-1794 | ||
* Italian thinker, concerned with prison reform | * considered the "father of criminal justice" or law | ||
* core ideas: | |||
** Italian thinker, concerned with prison reform | |||
* works: | |||
** wrote ''On Crimes and Punishments'' | ** wrote ''On Crimes and Punishments'' | ||
** condemned torture and the death penalty | ** condemned torture and the death penalty | ||
=== Pierre Bayle === | === Pierre Bayle === | ||
* core ideas | * 1647-1706 | ||
* famous for: | |||
** important fore-runner (came before) to the ''Encyclopedists'' (see Diderot) | |||
** promoted religious toleration | |||
* background: | |||
** born in France, his father was a Calvinist | |||
** he converted to Catholicism, then returned to Calvinism and fled to Geneva | |||
*** in Geneva he met Renee Descartes | |||
** he then went to Netherlands and taught at university in | |||
* core ideas: | |||
** a French protestant ("Huguenot"), Bayle fled persecution in France for the Netherlands | |||
** religious skepticism and toleration | ** religious skepticism and toleration | ||
* 1682 ''Reflections on Comets'' | * works: | ||
** Hailey's comet as natural phenomenon and not a mysterious event | ** ''Historical and Critical Dictionary'', starting 1697 | ||
** challenged superstition | ** 1682 ''Reflections on Comets'' | ||
* religious toleration | *** Hailey's comet as natural phenomenon and not a mysterious event | ||
*** challenged superstition | |||
* legacy | |||
** he argued that the Bible promoted religious toleration | |||
*** and that it did not justify use of force to coerce religious beliefs | |||
*** <br />"One must transcribe almost the whole New Testament to collect all the Proofs it affords us of that Gentleness and Long-suffering, which constitute the distinguishing and essential Character of the Gospel." He did not regard toleration as a danger to the state; on the contrary:<blockquote>"If the Multiplicity of Religions prejudices the State, it proceeds from their not bearing with one another but on the contrary endeavouring each to crush and destroy the other by methods of Persecution. In a word, all the Mischief arises not from Toleration, but from the want of it."</blockquote>Bayle also rejected the use of coercion and violence in the universities,<blockquote>It will be an everlasting subject of wonder to persons who know what philosophy is, to find that Aristotle's authority had been so much respected in the schools for several ages, that when a disputant quoted a passage from that philosopher, he who maintained the thesis, durst not say "Transeat," but must either deny the passage, or explain it in his own way—just as we treat the Holy Scriptures in the divinity schools. The parliaments, which have proscribed all other philosophy but that of Aristotle, are more excusable than the doctors; for whether the members of the parliament were really persuaded that that philosophy was the best of any, or whether they were not, the public good might have induced them to prohibit the new opinions, for fear the academical divisions should spread their malignant influences on the tranquility of the state.</blockquote> | |||
=== Denis Diderot === | === Denis Diderot === | ||
* 1713-1784 | |||
* core ideas | |||
* author, editor of ''l'Encyclopedie'' | * author, editor of ''l'Encyclopedie'' | ||
* self-exiled to Switzerland to carry on the project in secret | * self-exiled to Switzerland to carry on the project in secret | ||
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* Diderot quotation: | * Diderot quotation: | ||
**''"posterity is for the philosopher what the 'other world' is for the man of religion."'' | **''"posterity is for the philosopher what the 'other world' is for the man of religion."'' | ||
=== Thomas Hobbes === | |||
=== Robert Hooke === | === Robert Hooke === | ||