European Enlightenment

1680-1790
a product of the Protestant Reformation
intellectual "Age of Reason"
world view change from religious to secular
skepticism & religious skepticism
pursuit of happiness: focus on the human condition
diffusion of knowledge: books, pamphlets, publications, libraries, universities

Key dates

1648: end of the 30 Years War (religious dispute was a core cause of the war)
1680: publication of Isaac Newton's Principio Mathematica
1688: Glorious Revolution in England
1682: Haley's comet & Bayle's "Reflections on Comets"

Enlightenment definitions

disenchantment of the world
- from Max Weber
- attacking superstition
political reform
- applying reason to public policy
- infrastructure projects
- penal & criminal law enforcement and reform
  - vagrants and beggars

Enlightenment core ideas

truth can be found through investigation
self-government
- Glorious Revolution: William of Orange takes power
  - transfer of power based on the public good and not dynastic divine rule

Enlightenment projects

Diderot's "Encylopedie"

a tremendous project to catalog human knowledge
= an exercise in "freedom of thought"
had 28 volumes, 71,818 articles and 3,129 illustrations
started by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert
goals:
- Diderot wrote that the purpose of the project was ""to change the way people think"
- to disseminate (spread) knowledge across economic classes
- to give more common people access to practical knowledge, especially mechanics
it was the first encyclopedia to have independent contributors
some of the ideas presented in the encyclopedia were considered radical
- the French government banned it in 1759
- the work supported religious freedom
- many entries challenged religious doctrine
  - under the idea that knowledge is provable, the work treated religion as also subject to proof
  - the work attacked mysticism and superstition

taxonomy of human knowledge

Enlightenment's outlook was that all human knowledge and the world and universe around it can be understood rationally
- therefore, such knowledge can be organized logical
the Encyclopedia organized knowledge into three main categories:
- memory (factual knowledge)
- reason (logic, deduction)
- imagination (arts, literature)

Enlightenment thinkers

entry structure

=== section title: first, last, alphabetical by last name

dates
core ideas
works

Cesare Beccaria

1738-1794
Italian thinker, concerned with prison reform
- wrote On Crimes and Punishments
- condemned torture and the death penalty
considered the "father of criminal justice" or law

Pierre Bayle

core ideas
- religious skepticism and toleration
1682 Reflections on Comets
- Hailey's comet as natural phenomenon and not a mysterious event
- challenged superstition
religious toleration

Denis Diderot

author, editor of l'Encyclopedie
self-exiled to Switzerland to carry on the project in secret
Diderot was a follower of Voltaire and deisms (that God exists but not as a distinct entity)
- he later adopted materialism and atheism
- he believed that religious truths should be subject to the same standards of proof as any other knowledge
he also wrote plays and was a prominent art critic
overall, Diderot's thoughts are expressed in these questions, as proposed by one of his biographers, Andrew S. Curran:
- Why be moral in a world without god?
- How should we appreciate art?
- What are we and where do we come from?
- What are sex and love?
- How can a philosopher intervene in political affairs?
Diderot quotation:
- "posterity is for the philosopher what the 'other world' is for the man of religion."

Robert Hooke

David Hume

the problem of induction
- how do you know that the sun will rise tomorrow?
- Greek verwion of hte question >>> todo
reason will always be the slave of passion
in 2020 Hume cancelled by modern "cancel culture"
- Hume wrote a racist tract, "comments on matters of race" that posited that blacks were inferior beings
- in 2020, Edinburgh University removed his name from a building on campus

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

1729-1781
German writer and critic
- influenced German literature
- promoted religious tolerance and freedom
works:
- Nathan the Wise, a play on religious tolerance

click EXPAND for details on Nathan the Wise and the "parable of the rings"

- - a play about Nathan, a Jewish merchant who meets Saladin the Great, the Ottoman sultan and thus a core Islamic leader
  - Saladin asks Nathan which of the Abrahamic religions is the "true religion"
    - Abrahamic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam (in order of historical appearance)
  - Nathan avoids the question trap by answering with the "parable of the ring"
    - = a story about a magical ring that empowers the bearer God's approval ("pleasing to God")
      - i.e., the bearer's religion is the "true religion"
    - it is passed on by generation, until a father can't decide which of three sons to give it to
      - so he creates two exact copies and gives each son a ring
    - afterwards, the sons argue over who owns the actual ring
    - they take their dispute to a wise man who tells them
      - that perhaps all three rings are replicas, they cannot know
      - therefore, if each acts in such a way as God will be pleased, it would show that each ring has the magical power
      - i.e., God doesn't judge by one's religion but by one's actions

John Locke

1632-1704
key Enlightenment thinker
known as "Father of liberalism"
key ideas:
- "natural law" and "natural rights"
  - that people are born with certain rights and that "natural" laws pre-exist governments (which creates "positive law")
- the "social contract"
  - the government and the governed must have a "contract" that protects and defines the rights and responsibility of both
  - people have the natural right to protect their own "life, health, liberty, or possessions"
    - therefore, protecting those rights is a primary purpose of government (its contract)
- "consent of the governed"
- separation of powers
  - Locke envisioned separate executive, legislative and judicial branches
  - governments are legitimate only if they have the "consent" or permission from the "governed" (the people)
- the "clean slate" or "tabula rosa"
  - that all humans are born equal and learn from their environment and experiences
  - he promoted proper education of children when young
    - otherwise, prejudices, fears, and superstitions will be "locked in" to their memories
- separation of church and state
- property
  - Locke argued that property is a natural right and is necesssary for happiness
- supply and demand or "price threory"
  - Locke developed the economic / monetary theory of the relationship between supply and demand
works:
- "A Letter Concerning Toleration" 1689
- "Two Treatises of Government" 1689-90
- "Some Thoughts Concerning Education" 1693
- "1695. The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures" 1695
quotations:
- "What worries you masters you."

Montesquieu

Isaac Newton

Principio Mathematica
launched idea of a divinely-ordered universe understandable by mathematics

Voltaire

1694-1778
French philosopher and writer
ideas:
- freedom of speech
- freedom of religion and freedom and toleration
- separation of church and state
  - was very anti-clerical and anti-dogma (strict religious rules)
  - was a "deist" but not an atheist
- disliked democracy
  - leads to mob rule
- pluralism
  - Voltaire studied foreign religions and history and considered them on equal basis as with those of the West
  - he admired Confucius:

 Confucius has no interest in falsehood; he did not pretend to be prophet; he claimed no inspiration; he taught no new religion; he used no delusions; flattered not the emperor under whom he lived...

works:
- Candide
- satire on Enlightenment thought "best of all possible worlds"
quotations:
- "Common sense is not so common."