Euro - Chapter 17

Intro

• •inspired by physical scientists, enlightenment thinkers sought to discover natural laws of society
• •optimism - hoped to improve human individuals and society as a whole
• •Many believed that religion was enemy and tried to replace w/ 'science of man' in economics, politics and education
• •rationalism and secularism
• •most but not all thought women were inferior
• •argued for equality and right to education
• •ideas widely published and discussed
• •Methodism

Paths to

• Why things happen and who's doing it? Out of physical world and into beliefs and hopes
• Effort to apply texture criticism to bible and eradicate superstitions
• Many people were anti religious
• Cultural relativism- led to appreciation for other cultures outside Europe. Overtime, increase in racial classification and racism.
• Philosophes - leading thinkers of enlightenment. Intellectuals. Journals, professors, economists, social reformers.
• Cosmopolitan (worldly city) flavor. Opposed censorship
• Like SR, emphasis on practical application
• Charles de Secandat, Bacon de Montesquieu (1689-1758) - SEPERATION OF POWERS among executive , judiciary and legislative
• Religious toleration

Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet)

• Jesuit education, middle class
• Comparison of British (happy people) and French (upset people) governments
• Admired British constitutional govt.
• Hated organized religion (Catholic Church)
• -Why? :
• • C. Church strengthened absolute monarchy (1 king, 1 language, 1 religion)
• • C. Church put Galileo (father) on trial
• • barrier to progressive thinking
• Deism - god created universe, the left (withdrawal). He's not listening to you.
• Believe in right to believe (religious toleration)
• Believes in women. Not equal but plays bigger role.

Denis Didero

• Attacked Christianity
• First person to organized and create set of encyclopedias.
• - Monument to optimism and what men are capable of doing
• big advocate for women equality and capability

Hume and Physiocrats

• David Hume - Natural laws ('are they truly universal?'). More matter of systematically common sense.
• Physiocrats established economics as field of Natural science (supply/demand)
• Believed MISTAKENLY that all wealth stemmed from agriculture
• Put on path to make economics rational
• ADAM SMITH -WEALTH OF NATION - CAPITALISM
• - opposed tariffs
• - country should focus on what it does best
• - against gold and silver, in favor of labor
• - limit govt. to defense, civil order, major public works
• Economic Liberalism (today's conservatism) - belief how mostly ___ by conservatives of Republican Party

Baron Paul of d'Holbach

• Atheist (strong)
• -Universe consisted of matter in motivation
• -God was inventor of human intellect
• -good defined by society and what helps society
• -bad is opposite
• Marc Jean de Condeuract - this good has no limits
• perfection? Without divine assistance
• Organized religion is what is holding them back

Jean Jacques Rousseau

• "The Social Contract" (1763)
• • ill problems derived from private property
• •return to state of nature was impossible
• •individuals must be forced to be free and to conform to the general will
• - majority decision obliged to follow rule
• •true democracy, not representatives of small city states
• •education, he believed, should foster rather than restrict children natural instincts
• - allow kids to peruse their interests
• •precursor of Romanticism, emphasis on feelings over logic.

Women

• Didero and Voltaire - women advocates.
• Mary Astell (1666-1721) - argued for better education. Equal ability to benefit from education
• Compared womens statues with slavery, at time absolutionism was gaining traction.
• Mary Wollstonecraft (1754-1797)