Enlightenment Spreads

Enlightenment Spreads

1. Education

   • Denis Diderot - Encyclopedia (17 volumes)
     • if you give knowledge to people, they can think on their own
     • attacked religious intolerance + absolute gov't
   • teach people to think critically + objectively on everything

2. Women's Rights

   • Mary Astell
     • A Serious Proposal to the Ladies
     • criticize inequality b/w men and women in marriage
       • compare to monarch's power over people
     • women's education
   • Mary Wollstonecraft
     • A Vindication of the Rights of Women
     • contradictions in enlightenment thinkers vs. women's rights
     • equal rights - education, politics, economics
   • Emilie du Chatelet
     • mathematician + physicist
     • translated Newton into French

3. Culture/Arts

   • Baroque
     • popular before Enlightenment
     • grand, ornate, exaggeration
     • drama, detailed, contrast
     • absolutism - showing off power
     • Bach, Vivaldi
   • Neoclassical
     • simple, elegant
     • symmetry, geometry
     • beauty while quiet
     • order + balance
     • Greek/Roman themes
     • rational thinkers
     • Mozart, Haydn
     • popular during Enlightenment

4. Economic

   • Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations
   • nature should be left alone to work (economics)
     • supply and demand
     • laissez-faire: no gov't regulation of economy
     • individuals left alone to pursue their economic interests

5. Religion (deism)

   • question established religion - can't prove
   • religion exists, but within laws of nature
     • God created perfect universe; doesn't need to play active role
   • God = clockmaker

6. Monarchy