Enlightenment Thought Dr. Charles Walton Making of the Modern World

Transcription

1 Enlightenment Thought Dr. Charles Walton Making of the Modern World Sapere Aude! Dare to know! This is the mo8o of the Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant (1784) An answer to the quesdon: What is Enlightenment?

2 Enlightenment is man s release from self- imposed immaturity Kant

3 One day, people were thinking like Bossuet The next, like Voltaire Paul Hazard (historian) The Crisis of the European Mind (1935)

4 Who was Bossuet? Bossuet ( ) Bishop, orator, theologian and preacher at court of Versailles under the absoludst monarch, Louis XIV

5 Bossuet Poli=cs drawn from Holy Scripture (late 17 th c. France) The grounds of authority: God, Bible, King These were the foundadons of order in society: social reladons, a`tudes about nature, wealth, non- ChrisDan heredcal cultures, science

6 Bishop Bossuet How I hate these philosophers who, making their own intelligence the measure of God s purposes, would regard Him merely as the creator of a certain general order which He, then, leb to develop as best it might. As if God s aims were vague and confused generalides. Funeral Ora=on for Maria- Theresa, Queen of France (1683)

7 Bossuet I see preparadons for a great onslaught on the Church in the name of Cartesian philosophy. From the womb of that philosophy, from its principles, to my mind imperfectly understood, I foresee the birth of more than one heresy. Funeral Ora=on for Maria- Theresa (1683)

8 Early modern society: An enchanted, hierarchical world Witches, the devil Intercession of saints Preparing for death and the aberlife The great chain of being Privilege, hierarchy

9 Voltaire ( ) Rule of law Arts and Sciences Commercial prosperity Religious ToleraDon Écraser l infâme! Down with fanadcism! Civil liberdes (free speech)

10 François- Marie Arouet dit Voltaire Against noble privilege Against religious fanadcism Against censorship

11 Historical debates on the Enlightenment Classic view Enlightenment centred in France AnD- clerical, opposed to religion Unleashed democradc forces, leading to French RevoluDon Challenges to this view AbsoluDsts appropriated Enlightenment too, esp. free- market economic liberals (the French Physiocrats), Catherine the Great of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia There were religious enlightenments Especially Protestant and Jewish enlightenments Even those opposed to Enlightenment philosophers the counter enlightenment - - oben adopted Enlightenment ways of arguing So does the Enlightenment really have meaning?

12 Aspects of the Enlightenment Epistemological shib (today s lecture) What consdtutes valid knowledge New systems of thought Climate of opinion (next lecture) Whose opinions ma8er? The public sphere Campaign to transform and modernise state and society (next week) Morality, Government reform, RevoluDon

13 Origins of the Enlightenment PrinDng Press Gutenberg, 1450 Wider circuladon, shared knowledge, momentum ScienDfic and geographical discoveries What if earth is not centre of universe? What if God created other peoples with other religions? CirculaDon of classical texts What if valuable knowledge was produced before ChrisDanity? Religious dissendon How to surmount sectarian strife through confessionally neutral forms of knowledge and power

14 Phases of Enlightenment 17 th century major epistemological shibs Descartes, Malebranche (radonalism) Bacon, Locke, Newton (empiricism, sciendfic experiment) Spinoza, Bayle (religious toleradon) 18 th century developed and spread these new ideas and approaches to knowledge

15 Epistemology How we know what we know Theory of knowledge RaDonalism Emphasis on reason, the mind, math, logic SDll a bit metaphysical in 17 th century Empiricism Emphasis on experimentadon On useful knowledge, pracdcal applicadons

16 Galileo s telescope De- centered the earth De- stabilised humans self- concepdon Challenged religious authorides monopoly on knowledge

17 René Descartes ( ) SkepDcism, radical doubt QuesDon everything Individual reason hierarchies set aside Cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am RaDonalism truth found through reason Concerned with joining thought and ma8er (mind/ body dualism): Believed they were joined at pineal gland

18 Spinoza - Bayle Dutch Republic in 17 th century, where many religious minorides converged Freedom of conscience Religious toleradon (both had fled religious persecudon) Spinoza s Jewish family fled the Catholic InquisiDon in Spain Bayle fled Louis XIV s persecudon of French Calvinists (called the Huguenots) Secular foundadons for polidcal authority RaDonal foundadons for society rather than tradidon and supersddon God and nature are one. The quest to understand Nature s laws is to become close to God. PracDcing the new science and philosophy was a kind of piety, coming closer to God

19 Locke, Newton, Montesquieu Empiricists RepudiaDon of metaphysical systems (theories of God had oben infiltrated the radonalists philosophical systems) Knowledge through the senses empiricism Locke s blank- slate, sensadonalism Newton s laws of nature inducdon, not deducdon. Describing reladons and pa8erns rather than determining internal essences Montesquieu s laws of society, found in history

20 Newtonian thinking was open- ended could change with the introducdon of more facts focused on reladons and pa8erns, not inherent essences or eternal truths Laws of Nature do not reveal themselves explicitly (say, through God s word) but can be induced from observadon and the applicadon of math ImplicaDons: authorides could not claim to monopolize eternal truths.

21 The problem of Evil With the devil removed from the cosmic scheme, how does one account for evil in the world? Best of all possible worlds (Leibniz, 17 th c.) Historical, universal progress (18 th ) Stoicism and udlity: we must culdvate our gardens (Voltaire, Candide, 1759)

22 Lisbon Earthquake, 1755 How could nature and human nature prove to be so evil? 40-50K killed (by quake and post- quake violence) 80-90% of the buildings destroyed What was to be learned from it? Voltaire: culdvate one s garden Rousseau: cides are bad, providence good Le8er from R to V: I hate you!

23 The Encyclopédie, French, edited by Diderot and d Alembert, 17 vols. Published over 20 years in mid 18 th c. Most famous philosophers of the age Aim: to spread prac=cal knowledge in society With irreverent digs at authorides from Dme to Dme (e.g.: knowledge of God and black magic are treated together on the tree of knowledge)

24 Jean- Jacques Rousseau First Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (1750) IlluminaDon at Vincennes CivilisaDon and culture are corrupdng The arts and sciences, luxury and urban living alienate the individual from his/her natural self

25 Rousseau: the dissendng voice in the French Enlightenment Second Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (1755) Physical inequality is natural but moral inequality is ardficial: society creates inequalides The powerful use the convendons of civil society (laws, customs) to enrich themselves and exploit others Hobbes state of nature: all against all, civil strife Rousseau s state of nature: compassion and non- destrucdve love- of- self

26 Echoes of Rousseau Karl Marx: inequality as a central aspect of society and main driver of history Sigmund Freud s Civilisa=on and Its Discontents (1929) CivilisaDon leads to repression and mental illnesses

27 Overarching themes InvenDon of self and society as concepts Individuals are theoredcally commensurate moral equals De- naturalises old foundadons of hierarchy (caste, great chain of being) InequaliDes now seek new jusdficadons E.g.: use of science to naturalize gender and racial differences Man is a product of nature and potendally free and equal Focus now on Morality (reguladng one s free will) Science (discovering the laws of human nature) Knowledge should be directed at udlity and common good

28 Enlightenment PoliDcal Ideas The Social Contract Thomas Hobbes ( ) Leviathan (1651) Fled English Civil War, to Paris Witnessed the Fronde in France (also a civil war) European Thirty Years War, deadliest undl WWI Violence everywhere!! Life is nasty, brudsh and short Struggle of all against all Social contract: consent to confer absolute power, sovereignty, to a single person (monarch) Dark and secular jusdficadon for absoludsm; differed from divine- right jusdcadons Coercion in his philosophy of society is taken for granted

29 Rousseau s Du contrat social (1762) Replace coercion with morality Republicanism (obsessed with virtue and decline) Can t return to state of nature, so how shall we live together in society? Sovereignty in the general will How to harmonize pardcular wills with the general will? Civic morality, educadon, fesdvals, civil religion Teach people to see the collecdve interest AlternaDve to the Leviathan Social bonds are moral, not coerced

30 Enlightened absoludsm Voltaire Hated noble privilege, religious fanadcism, censorship Replace divine- right absoludsm with enlightened absoludsm Militated for universal taxes (since nobles did not pay nearly as much as others) RaDonal government (not democradc)

31 Montesquieu ( ) The Spirit of the Laws (1749) VaDcan puts on the Index (i.e., banned) Magistrate in one of the French sovereign courts (a parlement), which opposed absoludsm Need for checks- and- balances (parlements should check the absolute monarchy) Newtonian: society is guided by general laws Two kinds of laws PosiDve law (decreed, promulgated) General laws (the ones dictated by nature and found in the historical evidence from sociedes around the world) The first sociologist?

32 Montesquieu Ideal types of sociedes Monarchies honour Republics (aristocradc and democradc) virtue DespoDsms fear You idendfy the type of society then discern its animadng principle, the way that Newton discerned the law of gravity

33 Economy Adam Smith Sco`sh Enlightenment Moral philosopher Influenced by Mandeville, Rousseau and the French Physiocrats Pursuit of self- interest is naturally harmonised in society, leading to increased trade and progress Invisible hand

34 SeparaDon of Economy from PoliDcs Liberal economic theory Great influence in 19 th and 20 th centuries Neo- Liberalism (Milton Friedman, Thatcherism) Unleash producdve forces by constraining state intervendons into the economy CriDcism of liberal economic theory Effort to separate economic interests from polidcs is naïve, a dangerous utopianism; formula for polidcal frustradon People (rich and poor) will inevitably storm back into polidcs to see the state secure their interests (corrupdon; lobbies; strikes; protest)

35 The Enlightenment and Modernity Epistemological Shibs Climate of Opinion Campaign to reform state and society

36 What is the public sphere? Jürgen Habermas The Structural Transformation of the Bourgeois Public Sphere (1962)

37 The public sphere a space of rational-critical debate where private individuals come together to form a public where public opinion is formed and expressed, often in critique or opposition to the state or the ruling elite.

38 By the public sphere we mean first of all a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all cidzens. A pordon of the public sphere comes into being in every conversadon in which private individuals assemble to form a public body. They then behave neither like business or professional people transacdng private affairs, nor like members of a consdtudonal order subject to the legal constraints of a state bureaucracy. CiDzens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion - - that is, with the guarantee of assembly and associadon and the freedom to express and publish their opinions - - about ma8ers of general interest. (Habermas, The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia ArDcle, New German CriDque 3 (1974): 49)

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40 Where were the publics? Print culture Theatres Clubs (especially literary sociedes) Drinking publics (coffee houses, pubs) Salons (?)

41 What is Modernity? Ba8le between the Ancients and the Moderns Debate in French Academy, late 17 th c Moderns could be more pro- strong state than Ancients, who could be more republican Self- reflecdon is key: thinking about our place in history, and history s potendal

42 Modernity Making society and polidcs rather than following tradidonal scripts or leaving it to providence Theorizing about society and the individual Struggle between morality (civil educadon) and natural laws (discoverable through science) Focus on progress and change

43 CriDques of modernity 19 th c: ReacDonaries and counterrevoludonies RomanDcized a world of throne and altar, mysdcal authority and hierarchy Democracy = anarchy, terror 19 th 20 th c: AnD- capitalism, industrialisadon mid 20 th c: Frankfurt School Dialec=c of Enlightenment (1944) Instrumental radonality of the Enlightenment objecdvizes everything (environment) and everybody Technology trumps morality/ethics: death camps (note date of publicadon)

44 Recent cridques of the historical category modernity Fla8ens out and others everything else: i.e., the un- modern or pre- modern. We are modern; others are un- modern. May be an asserdon of idendty rather than a useful analydcal category It exaggerates newness and differences Is modernity really Euro- centrism in disguise? Or, if all sociedes around the world are seen to have their own modernity, does the term become meaningless because its too all- encompassing? Tautological: could we, as Europeans, ever have been un- modern or have taken an un- modern turn in the past 200 years? If liberalism, capitalism, socialism, communism and fascism are all modern developments, does the term really have meaning? Did Europeans just happen to make all the right decisions to stay on a modern track or are we using the term to indiscriminately encompass everything that happened? Danger of historical determinism.

45 The Enlightenment Epistemological Shib Climate of Opinion Campaign to reform state and society Next up: The French RevoluDon