Transcript Corporate Creativity

Chapter 35: The
Enlightenment
What is the Enlightenment?
• A period of philosophical, social and civil
development in which scientific reasoning
became the primary accepted authority.
• Roughly 1650-1800
• Outgrowth of the scientific revolution
• Began in England, moved to France,
and then to other parts of the western
world (including America)
• The “Age of Reason”
Characteristics of the Enlightenment
• Progressive, Rationalistic,
Humanistic worldview
• Emerged out of the
Scientific Revolution and
culminated in the French
Revolution
• Spokesmen = Rising
Middle Class
• Paris = Center of
Enlightenment
• Optimism about
mankind’s abilities
Key Ideas of Enlightenment
• Distrust of Tradition
and Revealed
Religion
• Scientific method
could be applied to
society as well
• Society can get better
as risks are taken
• Man is naturally good
• Good life is on earth
How was Enlightenment
Creative?
• Linear thinking
• Lateral thinking
– Logical
– Intuitive
– Traditional (Inside the
– Innovative (outside the
box)
– Jumps to conclusions
– Focuses thinking
–
–
box)
Keeps an open mind
Broadens thinking
The Enlightenment
• Application of the scientific method
to social problems
• Creativity in the Enlightenment
– Linear thinking
• Learning science
– Lateral thinking
• Applying science to social situations, religion, and
government
Deism ― “Scientific Religion”
• God is a remote Being or power in the
universe (“everywhere but nowhere”)
• Compared to a “watchmaker”
(universe governed by laws)
• Trusts “Natural” theology, but not
“revealed” (biblical) theology.
• Anti-clerical and skeptical of organized
religion
• Expects ethical, enlightened behavior
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
on Deism
• “Here it is that the religion
of Deism is superior to
the Christian Religion. It
is free from all those
invented and torturing
articles that shock our
reason or injure our
humanity, and with which
the Christian religion
abounds. Its creed is
pure, and sublimely
simple. It believes in
God, and there it rests.”
Discussion:
• Why would Deism flourish in the age of
Enlightenment?
The “Slippery Slope”
Conservative
Liberal
Deist
Agnostic
Atheist
Metaphysics
Given the new scientific understanding
of how the entire observable universe
operates, two gnawing issues remained:
Whether and how God fits in,
and
Whether and how human souls fits in.
Metaphysics
• Matter is inert and incapable of thought.
• There must be an immaterial existence.
• God and human spirits are immaterial.
VS.
• All existence is matter.
• Thinking and willing are properties of
matter.
• There is no God or human spirit.
Alternative Metaphysics
• All existence is matter.
• Spirit is matter, but more subtle and
refined.
• Spirit is capable of thought and will.
• God and human spirits are material.
Does this sound familiar?
Alternative Metaphysics
• In May 1843, Joseph Smith corrected a
Methodist minister stating, “There is no such
thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter
but it is more fine or pure, and can only be
discerned by purer eyes” (D&C 131:7).
Alternative Metaphysics
• Puritan Richard Baxter wrote in 1650: “The
soul is a substance; for that which is nothing
can do nothing…. It is not bones and flesh
that understand, but a purer substance, as all
acknowledge.”
• Unitarian theologian Joseph Priestley wrote in
1777: “The original, and still prevailing idea
concerning a soul or spirit, is that of a kind of
attenuated aerial substance, of a more subtle
nature than gross bodies.”
The Ubiquity of God’s Spirit
• Many believed that God was an
omnipresent Spirit filling all his
creations.
• Newton theorized that a subtle “Spirit”
filled the universe and be the medium
through which gravity works. He called
this Spirit “the spiritual body of Jesus”.
• Akin to popular concept of the “ether”
• Mormons know this as the light of
Christ.
The English Enlightenment
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• Materialism
– Leviathan
– "All that is real is material, and
what is not material is not real."
– argued that any speech referring to
“immaterial substances… [is] without
meaning” and that “to say an angel
or spirit is . . . an incorporeal
substance is to say, in effect, there is
no angel nor spirit at all
– Learned science from Galileo
Thomas Hobbes
• Government (Leviathan)
"[Early man's life was] solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short... [and in a constant
state of] warre, [living in] continual fear
and danger of violent death.“ – Leviathan
– Absolute monarchy was sent by God to help
mankind control the conditions of life
– Hobbes' concepts were used to justify
colonialization
Discussion
• Why was it important to go back to the
beginning of civilization to discover its
purpose?
• Do you think that primative humans were
warlike or peaceful?
John Locke (1632-1704)
• Attacked concept of Divine Right king
• Friend of Newton–empiricist
• The forefather of our forefathers
John Locke
• Materialism
– Existence consists of physical
matter and invisible spirit.
– The materiality or
immateriality of God and
spirit is unknown.
John Locke
• Government
– Second Treatise of Civil
Government
John Locke
• Men when they enter into society give
up ... liberty of a kind; yet it being only
with an intention in every one the better
to preserve himself, his liberty and
property, the power conferred can
never be supposed to extend farther
than the common good, but is obliged
to secure everyone's property.
John Locke
• [Government] can never have a right to
destroy, enslave, or designedly to
impoverish the subjects... To this end it is
that men give up all their natural power to the
society they enter into, and the community
put the legislative power into such hands as
they think fit, with this trust, that they shall
be governed by declared laws, or else their
peace, quiet, and property will still be at the
same uncertainty as it was in the state of
Nature.
John Locke
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) had described a
social contract in which people in a state of
nature ceded their individual rights to a strong
sovereign in return for his protection
• Locke offered a new social contract theory in
which people contracted with one another for a
particular kind of government, and that they
could modify or even abolish the government
– Great influence on Thomas Jefferson and the
Declaration of Independence
Rule of Law
Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins
― Locke
Discussion
• Could you have a very strong government
and still have the rule of law?
– Could that government be Machiavellian?
• What led Locke and Hobbes to different
conclusions?
John Locke
• Theory of Knowledge
– Essay Concerning Human Understanding
– Reasoning puts man above animals
– Rejected concept that ideas are innate
• Tabula rasa
– Outer ideas from experience
– Mankind can attain all knowledge
Alexander Pope
• English Poet
• Essay on Man and Essay on
Criticism
– Many famous sayings came
from these books
– Praised the Enlightenment
people but cautioned them to
beware of too much learning
“A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
– Alexander Pope from An Essay on Criticism
All Nature is but art unknown to thee
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
– Alexander Pope from Essay on Man
“We think our fathers fools,
so wise we grow;
Our wiser sons, no doubt,
will think us so.”
– Alexander Pope from An Essay on Criticism
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
• Irish essayist & cleric
• Hated injustice
• Politically active
• Satirist
– Gulliver’s Travels
– A Modest Proposal…
The Scientists
“The Knowledge I had in Mathematicks
gave me great Assistance in acquiring
their Phraseology, which depended much
upon that Science and Musick; and in the
latter I was not unskilled. Their Ideas are
perpetually conversant in Lines and
Figures. If they would, for Example,
praise the Beauty of a Woman, or any
other Animal, they describe it by
Rhombs, Circles, Parallelograms, Ellipses,
and other Geometrical Terms; or by
Words of Art drawn from Musick,
needless here to repeat.”
- Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (Laputa)
The Lawyers
I said there was a Society of Men among us, bred up from their
Youth in the Art of proving by Words multiplied for the Pleasure,
that White is Black, and Black is White, according as they are
paid. To this Society all the rest of the People are Slaves.
For Example, if my Neighbor hath a Mind to my Cow, he hires a
Lawyer to prove that he ought to have my Cow from me. I must
then hire another to defend my Right, it being against all Rules of
Law that any Man should be allowed to speak for himself. Now in
this Case, I who am the right Owner lie under two great
Disadvantages. First, my Lawyer being practiced almost from his
Cradle in defending Falsehood; is quite out of his Element when
he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office
unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with
Ill-will. The second Disadvantage is, that my Lawyer must
proceed with great Caution: Or else he will be reprimanded by the
Judges, and abhorred by his Brethren, as one that would lessen
the Practice of the Law. (continued)
The Lawyers (cont.)
And therefore I have but two Methods to preserve my Cow. The
first is, to gain over my Adversary's Lawyer with a double Fee;
who will then betray his Client by insinuating that he hath Justice
on his Side. The second way is for my Lawyer to make my Cause
appear as unjust as he can; by the Cow to belong to my
Adversary; and this, if it be skilfully done, will certainly bespeak
the Favour of the Bench.
It is a Maxim among these Lawyers, that whatever hath been
done before, may legally be done again: And therefore they take
special Care to record all the Decisions formerly made against
common Justice and the general Reason of Mankind. These,
under the Name of Precedents, they produce as Authorities to
justify the most iniquitous Opinions; and the Judges never fail of
decreeing accordingly.
- Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (Houyhnhnms)
A Modest Proposal
“It think it is agreed by all parties that this
prodigious number of children in the arms, or on
the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and
frequently of their fathers, is in the present
deplorable state of the kingdom a very great
additional grievance; and therefore whoever
could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of
making these children sound, useful members of
the commonwealth would deserve so well of the
public as to have his statue set up for a preserver
of the nation….
- Jonathan Swift: A Modest Proposal…
Creativity Concept
• Write a satire in the style of Swift about
some aspect of modern life
The French Enlightenment
Discussion
Why did the enlightenment take longer
to take hold in France than in England?
The “Philosophes”
• Pronounced fĭl' ə sŏf
• French name for philosopher, but
referred to an enlightenment
intellectual.
• Enlightenment spread in France
largely through Voltaire.
Progressive Ideology of the Philosophes
• Most philosophes were optimistic about the
future because they believed in the inevitability
of progress.
• Saw human history largely as a history of the
improvement of humanity in three respects:
– Developing a rational knowledge of the natural world
and the ability to manipulate the world through
technology
– Overcoming ignorance bred of superstitions and
religions
– Overcoming human cruelty and violence through
social improvements and government structures
Voltaire (1694-1778)
• Pen name
• Deist; critical of Catholic church
• Lived in exile (London) and grew
to love the works of Newton
• Returned to French/Swiss chateau
• Leader of the French Enlightenment
• Court of Frederick II of Prussia
• Candide
– "Let us all tend our garden“
• Joined Freemasonry in last year of his life
Voltaire as Deist
“All nature cries aloud that He [God] does exist that
there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power,
an admirable order, and everything teaches us our
own dependence on it.”
“Morality is everywhere the same for all men,
therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore
they are the work of men.”
– Voltaire
Treatise on Tolerance
“This little globe, which is but a point, rolls through
space, as do many other globes; we are lost in the
immensity of the universe. Man, only five feet high,
is assuredly only a small thing in creation. One of
these imperceptible beings says to another one of
his neighbors, in Arabia or South Africa: 'Listen to
me, because God of all these worlds has
enlightened me: there are nine hundred million little
ants like us on the earth, but my ant-hole is the only
one dear to God; all the other are cast off by Him
for eternity; mine alone will be happy, and all the
others will be eternally damned.”
– Voltaire
Letter to Prince Frederick of Prussia
“In the midst of all the doubts we have discussed for
four thousand years in four thousand ways, the
safest course is to do nothing against one's
conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and
have nothing to fear from death.
There are some charlatans who admit no doubts.
We know nothing of first principles. It is surely very
presumptuous ... to pretend to know precisely why
God made the world, when we do not know why we
can move our arms at our pleasure.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an
absurd one.”
– Voltaire
Discussion
• Voltaire lost his belief in God because of
the Lisbon earthquake. He said that if God
was benevolent and all-powerful, he would
not allow such senseless suffering to
occur. Therefore, since there was
suffering, God must not be all-powerful or
must not exist.
• What do you think?
Treatise on Tolerance (Compassion)
“Nature tells us all, ‘You have been born weak and ignorant
and are doomed to live out a few fleeting moments on the
earth before fertilizing it with your corpses. Since you are
weak, you must look after one another, and since you are
ignorant you must educate each other. If…[someone] clings
to a different opinion, you must forgive him; for it is I who am
responsible for making him think the way he does . I have
given you the strength with which to cultivate the ground and
a flicker of intelligence to guide you. I have placed in each of
your hearts a seed of compassion with which to help one
another through life. Do not smother this seed; nor must you
corrupt it; for it is divine.”
– Voltaire
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
• Contest: "Does progress in
the arts and sciences
correspond with progress in
morality?"
• Social Contract
– “Noble Savage” (instinctive
goodness)
• Laid the foundation for the
French Revolution
– Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
– Dominance of the legislature
“Man is born free, yet
everywhere he is in chains.”
–Rousseau
Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
• Encyclopedia
– 15 yrs to publish all 17
volumes
– Stated goal: “All things must
be examined, debated,
investigated without exception
and without regard for
anyone's feelings."
Liberty
"The good of the people must be the
great purpose of government. By
the laws of nature and of reason, the
governors are invested with power to
that end. And the greatest good of
the people is liberty. It is to the
state what health is to the
individual."
- Diderot in L'Encyclopedie: Article on Government, quoted
in Barzun, Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence, Perennial,
2000, p370.
Other Enlightenment Thinkers
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
• German enlightenment
• Transcendentalism
• The Critique of Pure Reason
and …Practical Reason
• Categorical Imperative
Categorical Imperative
"You should behave with only those types
of behavior that are dictated by the
absolute nature of the basic principle on
which the act is based."
"Act as if your actions would become a
moral maxim (principle or model) for all
others and at all times."
– From Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative
Adam Smith
• Scottish professor
• Wealth of Nations
– Free enterprise system
– The role of self-interest and laissez-faire
• Through an “invisible hand” self-interest guides the
most efficient use of resources in a nation’s
economy, with public welfare coming as a by-product
• State and personal efforts to promote social good are
ineffectual compared to unbridled market forces
– Provides the intellectual rationale for free trade
and capitalism.
Edward Gibbon
• Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire
• Anti-religious bias
• Do you think, as did Gibbon,
that the adoption of
Christianity by the Roman
Empire weakened the
empire?
David Hume
• Scottish philosopher
• Leader of empiricism
movement
• Grew to distrust all and
question everything.
• Materialist?
• Atheist?
Change Wrought by Enlightenment
• Weakened the influence of organized
religion, but certainly did not destroy
institutional churches
• Encouraged the replacement of Christian
values (which had guided European
thought on religious and moral affairs for
over a thousand years) with a new set of
secular values
Legacy of the Enlightenment
• Debate on whether evolution or
creationism should be taught in schools
• Debate on Judeo-Christian values and
secular humanism
• Debate on free trade and protective tariffs
• Debate on what the role and authority of
government should be
End of Chapter 35
Examine with the mind, and listen
with the heart.