The Age of Enlightenment

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World HistoryChapter 5 The Age of Enlightenment

Scientific Revolution Sparks the EnlightenmentBy the early 1700s, European thinkers felt that nothing was beyond the reach of the human mind. Through the use of reason, insisted these thinkers, people, and governments could solve every social, political, and economic problem. In essence, these writers, scholars, and philosophers felt they could change the world. Scientific Revolution Sparks the EnlightenmentThe Scientific Revolution of the 1500s and 1600s had transformed the way people in Europe looked at the world.

Scientific successes convinced educated Europeans of the power of human reason.

Natural laws= rules discoverable by reason, govern scientific forces such as gravity and magnetism. Hobbes and Locke Have Conflicting ViewsThomas Hobbes John Locke

Philosophy in the Age of ReasonThomas HobbesJohn LockeWrote Leviathan Believed people were naturally cruel, greedy, selfish.If not strictly controlled (by an absolute monarch) they would fight, rob, oppress one another.Wrote English Bill of RightsBelieved people were basically reasonable and moral.They had certain rights: natural rightsBaron de Montesquieu: (French) studied governments & cultures throughout history. Created the idea of a three branch government with checks and balances

Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet): to say what I think most famous of the philosophes

Denis Diderot: created the first Encyclopedia ( 25 yrs to produce 28 volumes)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Believed people in their natural state were basically good

Mary Wollstonecraft (British): social critic. Felt womens first duty was to be a good mother. In favor of equal rights.

Adam Smith (Scottish economist): Wrote Wealth of Nations. Argued that the free market should be allowed to regulate business activity.

Key Terms: Natural law: laws that govern human nature

Social contract: an agreement by which they gave up the state of nature for an organized society

Natural right: Rights that belonged to all humans from birth

Philosophe: lovers of wisdom, group of enlightenment thinkers. Physiocrats: (Thinkers) focused on economic reforms. They looked for natural laws to define a rational economic system.

Laissez-faire: allowing business to operate with little or no government interference. The Enlightened Individual The Philosophe

Not really original thinkers as a whole, but were great publicists of the new thinking CHANGE & PROGRESS!They were students of society who analyzed its evils and advanced reforms.9The American PhilosophesJohn Adams(1745-1826)Ben Franklin(1706-1790)ThomasJefferson(1743-1826)

...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...10Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Common Sense, 1776

The Rights of Man, 1791

11A Parisian Salon

12Madame Geoffrins Salon

13Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyones feelings.

We will speak against senseless laws until they are reformed; and, while we wait, we will abide by them.14Diderots Encyclopdie

15Pages from Diderots Encyclopedie

16Pages from Diderots Encyclopedie

17Subscriptions to Diderots Encyclopedie

18Reading During the EnlightenmentLiteracy:80% for men; 60% women.Books were expensive (one days wages).Many readers for each book (20:1)novels, plays & other literature.journals, memoirs, private lives.philosophy, history, theology.newspapers, political pamphlets.19An Increase in Reading

20An Increase in Reading

21Must Read Books of the Time

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Enlightened Despots

Absolute rulers who used their power to bring about political and social change.

23Frederick the Great of Prussia (r. 1740-1786) 1712 - 1786.

Succeeded his father, Frederick William I (the Soldier King).

He saw himself as the First Servant of the State.

24Catherine the Great (r. 1762-1796) German Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst. 1729 - 1796.

25Joseph II of Austria (r. 1765-1790) 1741 - 1790. His mother was Maria Theresa.

26The Legacy of the Enlightenment?The democratic revolutions begun in America in 1776 and continued in Amsterdam, Brussels, and especially in Paris in the late 1780s, put every Western government on the defensive.Reform, democracy, and republicanism had been placed irrevocably on the Western agenda.27The Legacy of the Enlightenment?New forms of civil society arose -- clubs, salons, fraternals, private academies, lending libraries, and professional/scientific organizations.19c conservatives blamed it for the modern egalitarian disease (once reformers began to criticize established institutions, they didnt know where and when to stop!)28The Legacy of the Enlightenment?It established a materialistic tradition based on an ethical system derived solely from a naturalistic account of the human condition (the Religion of Nature).Theoretically endowed with full civil and legal rights, the individual had come into existence as a political and social force to be reckoned with.29