Transcript The age of reason

The age of reason
What is philosophy?
The Enlightenment
• Early 1700s, new generation of thinkers.
• Examined the power of human reason.
• Follows from earlier scientific revolution.
(Discoveries around magnetism, gravity etc.)
• Could the concept of natural law applied to
science be used to examine human
institutions?
Applying natural law
• German philosopher Immanuel Kant coined
the term enlightenment.
• English philosophers Thomas Hobbes & John
Locke wrote about government & politics
using the concept of deep reasoning (natural
law).
Hobbes & Locke
• Two very different views on human
societies and politics. Both men had seen
the excesses of the English civil war.
Hobbes: wrote
Leviathan
• People are naturally cruel, greedy and selfish
• Strong government is necessary
• Without strong controls, life would be “short,
poor, brutish.”
• In exchange for a better life, people entered
into a social contract.
Social contract
• An invisible agreement by which individuals
traded complete freedom in order to take part
in an orderly society.
• Hobbes believed this orderly society came
from a government based on absolute
monarchy.
Locke: wrote Two Treatises on
Government
• Believed people were basically
reasonable and moral
• All people had “natural rights” –
from birth.
• These rights included life, liberty
and property.
Locke believed
• The best type of government had limited
power.
• Government has an obligation to its people.
• When government fails its people, it should be
overthrown.
The philosophies – 1700s
• French philosophers further explored how
society should be organized.
• A group of philosophers furthered the idea of
applying scientific reasoning to government.
Baron de Montesquieu
• Wrote The Spirit of the Laws in
1748.
• Believed that the best way to
protect liberty was to divide the
power of government among
three branches.
• Legislative, judicial, executive.
• Each could provide a check on
the power of the others.
Voltaire
• Used satire and humor to expose
the injustices of the era.
• He offended both the Catholic
church and the French
government.
• Promoted free speech – his books
were banned, burned.
• He fled into exile.
Rousseau
• Wrote The Social Contract (1762).
• Believed that people were naturally good but
were corrupted by society’s evils.
• Society placed too many restrictions on
people’s behavior.
• Hated political and economic oppression.
• Controls were necessary but should be
limited.
Denis Diderot
• Produced a 28-volume encyclopedia.
• Sought to change the “way of
thinking.”
• Encyclopedia included articles by the
French philosophers.
• Promoted freedom of speech and
education for all.
• Banned but still 4000 copies printed.
Les Philosophies – no women!
• Together, these French philosophers the idea
of freedom and equality.
• But they believed that women’s freedom and
equality were limited to home & family
The voice of women
• Germaine de Stael, Catherine Macaulay &
Mary Wollstonecraft challenged the male
philosophers’ positions on the social contract.
• They were ridiculed for their writings and
condemned for speaking out.
Wollstonecraft
• Wrote Vindication of the Rights of Women - 1792
• Called for equal education for girls and boys.
• Education would give girls the ability to
participate equally in society.
New economic thinking
• Adam Smith wrote The
Wealth of Nations.
• Promoted a free market
(no tariffs, no barriers).
• Idea of supply & demand.
• Growing movement of
laissez-faire capitalism –
business without
government interference.
Written response
• Read pages 550-551.
• Then a one paragraph response to each of
these questions:
1 – How did writers, such as Diderot &
Voltaire, avoid potential censorship?
2 – To avoid the attention of the authorities,
how did writers and others meet to discuss
and promote their ideas?