Monday, 8/30/10
• Good Morning! Please put your maps in the back table to be laminated. Make sure your name is on all three! Get out your notebooks! I’ll be checking for them.
• The Enlightenment- – Briefly summarize your knowledge about the
Enlightenment period and the impact it has had on forming our modern world.
Pre-Enlightenment
• Middle Ages-death, illiteracy, war• Renaissance- art, literature, Catholic Church• Reformation-Printing press, questioning
church• Scientific Revolution-logic and reason
What Characterizes the Enlightenment?
• The belief that logic and reason could explain everything
• The emphasis of natural rights• Secularism• Individualism• Faith in man’s ability to find an explanation for
everything• Toleration• Legal Reform
The Philosophes
French writers of the Enlightenment: questioned social traditions, the Church and absolutism.
Salons: wealthy gathered to discuss enlightenment ideas
Back to Newton…
-Newton applied logic and reason to science
-Philosophes believed you could apply logic and reason to other aspects of life.
Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• Social Contract: ruler needs total control to keep order
• Absolute monarchy: impose order and demand obedience
• Man was selfish and wicked
John Locke (1632-1704)
Natural Rights
• Natural Rights: life, liberty and property• Purpose of government to protect these
rights; if not people should overthrow govn’t.• Foundation of modern democracy
Voltaire (1694-1778)
• Toleration• Critical of organized religion– Believed in Deism (God is creator but non-
interferring)• “I may not agree with what you say, but I will
defend to the death your right to say it.”
The Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)- Separation of political power- ‘checks and balances’
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
• The Social Contract (1762)
• All people are equal; abolish nobility
• Government should be guided by free will and general consent of the people
• “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains”
Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)On Crimes and Punishments (1764)
-Laws existed to preserve social order, not avenge crimes
-all should receive a speedy trial without torture
-the degree of punishment based on severity of crime
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
• The Wealth of Nations (1776)
Smith’s View of the Economy
• Self-interest-work for your own good• Competition-forces people to make a better
product• Supply and Demand-goods at low price to
meet need • Laissez-faire “the invisible hand”– Role of the government
Women
• Mary Astell, “ If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a state, how come it be so in a family? …If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?”
• Influenced Mary Wollstonecraft:– Argued for women’s right to education– Urged women in fields of medicine and politics– Her daughter Mary wrote “Frankenstein”
Pair Up: Read pgs. 24-27 and answer questions (each person should write their own answer but discuss it with your partner)
• What role did the Catholic church play in the Enlightenment movement?
• What issues did the Philosophes raise about justice and criminal punishment?
• How did Enlightenment thinkers view the ideas of divine right and absolute rulers?
