The Enlightenment
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PDF file of quotations used in the lecture
Society: The Past and Future Collide
- Old Regime - Vestiges of feudalism
- The three estates - Church, Nobility, Commoner
- Herrenstaat - state governed by the interest of feudal
aristocracy
- Bourgeois paradigm - A capitalist world view
- Society of equal competitors
- Contractual relationships based on mutual self interest
Enlightenment Principles
- Reason Replaces Faith
- A continuation of Cartesian thought - Encyclopedie
- Reason a better foundation for society than superstition
or custom - Voltaire
- The Deists (Deism) challenge to religion
- A perfect God created the cosmos
- God is however no longer involved in the workings of this world
- Imperfections are the result of man and his institutions
- Natural Law Replaces King's Law
- Like Newton's laws of the universe, philosophers sought
innate laws of human activity
- Tabula rasa - Locke
- Blank page or empty slate
- The natural law of equality
- Emphasis on environment over heredity
- Contempt for the aristocracy as a dated corrupt institution
- Beaumarchais
- Declaration of Independence cites natural law as the basis
of a new order - Thomas Jefferson
- Laissez faire - Adam
Smith
- Economic principle stating that the economic order best produces
wealth when left alone
- Regulation through natural law rather than man's institutions
which tend toward corruption
- Progress Replaces Status Quo
- If Old Regime is not "god given" it can be changed
and improved - Voltaire
- French predilection for utopias vs American pragmatism
- Reform of:
- Judicial system - equality in the eyes of the law
- Education - broad based access to education
Vehicles of the Enlightenment
- Salons
- Encyclopedie (1751) 22 vol. ed. by Diderot
- Didactic and considered subversive
- Louis XV tried to prevent its circulation
Humanities
Resource of Mark Hunter