Enlightenment (Philosophy)
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The Enlightenment is a metaphorical expression defining the cultural and philosophical movement which has dominated in Europe and especially France , the eighteenth century which he gave, by extension, the name of the Enlightenment. The thinkers of this period marked the area of knowledge (science and philosophy) and art (especially literature) with their questions and critiques based on " reason enlightened human being and the idea freedom.
Through their commitment against oppression religious, moral and political members of this movement, which saw itself as an elite working for a forward progress of the world, fighting the irrational, the arbitrary , the obscurantism and superstition of past ages have renewed the knowledge of the ethical and the aesthetic of their time. The influence of their writings has been instrumental in major events of the late eighteenth century that the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America and the French Revolution . It is, strictly speaking, European foremost, and it derives almost exclusively from a specific context of maturation of ideas inherited from the Renaissance. Very broadly, the scientific and philosophical, the Enlightenment saw the triumph of reason over faith and belief , the political and economic triumph of the bourgeoisie over the nobility and the clergy. Finally we sometimes speak of the Enlightenment (the noun) to designate the thinkers, writers and philosophers emblematic of this movement of thought, which can be regarded as an abuse of language (we prefer rather to speak of such " philosopher of the Enlightenment " ).
The Enlightenment was largely a continuation of the discoveries of Copernicus in the sixteenth century, soon released in his lifetime and especially the theories of Galileo (1564-1642). A search of axioms , proven certainties, continued in the movement of Cartesianism throughout the eighteenth century . But he distanced his elder in his Treatise on reform of the understanding ( intellectus amendatione Tractatus ), where he showed that the process of perception involves not only the right but also the meaning and intuition. The design of Spinoza was focused on a vision of the universe where God and Nature are one. This idea became central to the Enlightenment , since Isaac Newton (1642-1727) to Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).
A notable change was the emergence of the naturalistic philosophy throughout Europe, embodied by Newton. His ideas, his undeniable success in confronting and assemble evidence axiomatic and physical findings into a coherent system, source of forecasts, set the tone for everything that was to follow his copy of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687). To show progress between the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, the example of Newton is indeed unsurpassable, in that the use of scientific facts observed empirically, as the dynamics of planets of Johannes Kepler and the optical , to construct an underlying theory explaining these facts a priori: the theory of universal gravitation. This movement corresponds to the unification of pure empiricism , like Francis Bacon and the axiomatic approach of Descartes (1596-1650).
The belief in an intelligible world ordered by the Christian God has shown the strongest impulse of philosophical questioning on knowledge. On the one hand, religious philosophy focused on piety, the omnipotence and mystery of the ultimate nature of God, on the other, ideas such as Deism stressed that the world was clearly understood by human reason and that laws governing the were just as much. The image of God as "Big Clock" then entered the minds, while observers of the world became aware that he seemed perfectly fine and well ordered and at the same time, we make machines more sophisticated and specific .
This constancy to seek and state laws, to determine the specific behaviors, was also an important element in building a philosophy where the prevalent concept of individuality, in short, where the individual had rights based on other grounds that the only tradition. This is known as the advent about thinking, as the individual can decide for his own reasoning and not solely under the yoke of traditions and customs. Thus, John Locke wrote his two Treatises of Civil Government in which he argues that property law is not family, but completely removed from the individual and work spent in the field concerned, and its protection from others. Once the suggestion that there are natural laws and natural rights, it became possible to venture into new areas now called the economy and political philosophy.
In his famous essay "Was ist Aufklrung? , Immanuel Kant gives the following definition of the Enlightenment: "Enlightenment is the exit of the man out of state guardianship which he is himself responsible. The state of guardianship is unable to use his intellect without the conduct of another. It is itself responsible for this state of tutelage, when the cause is not a lack of understanding but a lack of resolution and courage to use it without the conduct of another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding! Such is the motto of enlightenment. "
Lights are thus based on the belief in a rational world, orderly and comprehensible, requiring the establishment of human knowledge equally rational and organized. It starts with the idea that the laws governing both the heavens, that human affairs and the power of the Prince comes from the law and not the reverse. The conception of law as a social contract theorized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as a reciprocal relationship between people, rather than between families or groups, became increasingly conspicuous, accompanied by a concern for individual liberty as inalienable reality - the only right derived from God. The Enlightenment created or reinvented so the ideas of liberty, property and rationality as we know them today and as always the first and introduced in political philosophy: the idea and the desire to be a free individual , Freedom of the more assurance that the State guarantees the stability of laws.
To really understand what changes occur between the "Age of Reason" and "Enlightenment", the comparison between Thomas Hobbes and John Locke is a good approach. Hobbes, which crosses three quarters of the seventeenth century , undertook a systematic way of classifying human emotions, which led him to build a rigid system by ensuring the stability of coercion primary chaos - which is the source of his work ( see Leviathan ). In contrast, Locke sees in Nature the source of unity and all rights, the State must ensure the resumption and protect, not stifle. Thus, the 'revolution' cultural between the two centuries involves the relationship of man to nature: we pass a vision darkened and chaotic, with an admiration of the natural fundamental.
Dissemination of knowledge - the Encyclopedia
A second major change in the Enlightenment from the previous century, originated in France, with Encyclopedists. This intellectual movement argues that there is a scientific and moral architecture of knowledge, structure prevalent and orderly and that implementation is a means of liberation of man . The philosopher Denis Diderot and the mathematician d'Alembert in 1751 published the Encyclopedia Dictionary of the sciences, arts and crafts.
The process of diffusion of new ideas is amplified by technological advances in dissemination of information. The passages from the Encyclopedia are read by the nobles, the dukes, and in the bourgeois salons , those present gave their views on the writings of philosophers. Newspapers and correspondence enabled faster exchanges across Europe, achieving a new form of unity cultural. This was not without questions about the freedom of access and dissemination of such information. We know the role played by the press in disseminating ideas, especially during the French Revolution.
Criticism of social organization
The Enlightenment is over its entire length, the substrate of two antagonistic sociological pressures: first, a strong spiritual faith accompanied by a traditionalist in religion and the Church, on the other hand, the rise of movement anticlerical critical differences between religious theory and practice, which was most evident in France.
In the latter country, the society was divided into three orders: the nobility, the clergy and the Third Estate. These levels correspond to the subdivision inherited from the medieval period : those who fight, those who pray and those who work.
The political unification of France in the Renaissance had led to a significant fraction of the nobility had rights and privileges unrelated to his military obligations. On the other hand, a new class appeared with the development of trade: the bourgeoisie, who wanted more freedom in the economic field. The people became under-represented in the third condition, relative to its size.
The anticlericalism was therefore not the only source of tension in France: some nobles challenged the monarchy and upper classes wanted to enjoy the fruits of his efforts. The senior clergy, including the canons , at that time benefited from stipends disproportionate to their actual responsibilities. The liberalization of morals engendered challenges to absolutism and the old order. The current Jansenism in France was also, according to Dale K. Van Kley, a source of division .
In this context, the legal system proved archaic. While trade law was codified in the seventeenth century, the civil law was not unified or codified.
This is the background social and legal environment in which criticism is exercised and developed the dispute, as one writer Voltaire was able to embody.
Exiled in England between 1726 and 1729, he studied the works of John Locke, Isaac Newton and the English monarchy. It makes it popular with his denunciation of injustices (Business Calas , Sirven , La Barre , Lally Tollendal ). The middle of the eighteenth century was the heyday of the Enlightenment .
"For Voltaire, it is clear that if the Prince gets the people he believes in things unreasonable, then the people will do things unreasonable" The influence of the Enlightenment in political change From the late seventeenth century, John Locke had defined the separation of powers between the executive and legislative . Montesquieu said the idea of separation of powers and extended to a third power, the judiciary in De The Spirit of Laws (1748). In the 1750s , attempts were made in England, Austria , in Prussia and France, to "streamline" the monarchies and their laws. The bright idea of a government "rational" was embodied in the Declaration of Independence American and to a lesser extent, in the program of the Jacobins during the French Revolution. One can also cite the U.S. Constitution of 1787. The French Revolution, in particular, represents an application-violent philosophy of the Enlightenment, especially during the brief period of power of the Jacobins. The desire for rationality led to an attempt to eradicate the Church and Christianity as a whole, so the National Convention changed the calendar , system of measuring time, and the monetary system, while placing the idea of equality , social and economic development of the highest priorities of the State . As the spirit grew philosophical, in the lounges, pubs or clubs , monarchical authority is disintegrating, undermined both by attempts at reform by the next day without opposition aristocratic . The Enlightenment, the source of the American Revolution? Personality which penetrated the most Enlightenment in North America was probably Thomas Jefferson. The spread of Enlightenment The progress of literacy and reading allow the development of what has been called a "public space", the intellectual and political debates go beyond the narrow circle of government and elites, gradually involving sectors wider society. This is primarily the cafes, where you read and debate, as the Cafe Procope in Paris, which are nocturnal rendezvous for young poets and critics who argue passionately recent success of theater and bookstore. But it is mostly mundane rooms opened by those who have some ambition, even if that appeared. They are characterized by mixed intellectual people express themselves, find an opportunity to satisfy their thirst for knowledge and to maintain their world view. But it must be introduced. The ladies are artists, scientists and philosophers. Each host has its day, its specialty and its guests. The model is the hotel of Madame de Lambert , at the beginning of the century. Talented people meet there regularly to share ideas or test on a privileged audience to their latest. Worldly and cultured, the creators of these shows enliven the evenings, encourage the timid and cut short the dispute. These strong personalities, very free compared to their counterparts, are often themselves writers and letter writer. The mix is particularly successful in France, the eighteenth in the "States General of the human spirit flourishes where the Enlightenment. Women cultivated, intelligent are full partners with whom we can challenge religious ideas, political scientists, who are capable of giving impetus to debates; are cited for example the statement of Anne Dacier in the quarrel Ancients and the Moderns and the works of Emilie du Chatelet. The Academies were societies which met to deal Belles-lettres, science, and contribute to the dissemination of knowledge. In France, after the foundation of monarchical seventeenth century ( French Academy , 1634; Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres , 1663, Royal Academy of Sciences , 1666, Royal Academy of Architecture , 1671), born again in Paris, ' Royal Academy of Surgery (1731) and the Royal Society of Medicine (1776). The clergy and to a lesser extent, the nobility dominated. These companies include provincial representatives of the intellectual elite of French cities. Their social composition reveals that the privileged to occupy a less than in Paris: 37% nobles, 20% of church people. Commoners constitute 43% of the workforce: it's quiet propertied elite who sits there. Merchants and manufacturers are rare (4%). Neighboring academies, often populated with the same men eager for knowledge, public libraries and reading rooms have multiplied, founded by wealthy individuals or from public subscriptions. They collect scientific work, large dictionaries, provide a reading room and, next, a chat room. All these philosophical societies function as open lounges and form networks among themselves provincial, national, European, exchanging books and letters, inviting foreigners enlightened thinking of launching programs, research competitions. It talks about physics , chemistry , mineralogy , agronomy , demography. In the thirteen British colonies in North America , James Bowdoin (1726-1790), John Adams (1735-1726) and John Hancock (1737-1793) founded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston during the Revolutionary War United States of America. In 1743, Benjamin Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society. In the early nineteenth century , Thomas Jefferson was one of the richest private libraries in the country. Among the networks lit, the most developed is that of Freemasonry , though restricted to the upper layers. Born in England and Scotland , the Freemasons , a group-oriented and humanistic initiation, concentrates all the characters of the Enlightenment: it is theistic, tolerant, liberal, humanistic, sentimental. It was a marvelous success throughout Europe where there are thousands of boxes in 1789. The media, military and even religious-related state apparatuses, are particularly earned. Nor anticlerical (they will be in the nineteenth century) or revolutionary, the boxes have helped spread the philosophical ideas and the spirit of reform in politically strategic areas. Intellectual discussion outweighs the esoteric or sectarian. Above all, there are elites, even more than in the academies, learning the primacy of equal talent on the privileges of birth. The press has facilitated the dissemination of philosophical texts (including the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert), and has triggered the process of reflection among the people. The press finally contributes to the formation of public opinion, despite censorship, still active. The Journal of learned men , the Mercure de France , the economic periodicals as the Ephemerides du Citoyen written by Nicolas Baudeau Economists party (party political philosophers or Physiocrats such as Franois Quesnay ), are in fact rather what we would call journals. By the census of books and subscriptions collective philosophical societies, audiences away from creating centers may inspect and debate ideas, discoveries of the month, otherwise the day. Intellectual movement enshrined in their century, the Enlightenment influenced the art of their time. If they do not dictate a specific aesthetic . The City of Lights is the result of joint efforts by governments and architects concerned with the public good: it must be lighted, ventilated, safe and functional Values and Social Representations of the Enlightenment We can say that this period marks the advent of new social representations , what Michel Foucault called episteme , and responds in some ways, the phenomenon that occurred in the Renaissance . " The ideal figure of the Enlightenment was the philosopher, man of letters with a social function that has its reason in every field to guide the conscience , advocate a scale of values and activism in contemporary issues. It is an engaged intellectual who intervenes in the society , an "honest man who acts by any reason" ( Encyclopaedia ), who takes care to expose errors (Diderot). Among the figures of the Enlightenment in his criticism of slavery and colonization , there are, among others, Denis Diderot in the Supplement au voyage de Bougainville , in Voltaire's Candide , but especially Guillaume-Thomas Raynal and his philosophical and political history and institutions Trade of Europeans in the two Indies , encyclopedia of anti-colonialism in the eighteenth century which have collaborated, among others, Diderot and d'Holbach. Le rationalisme des Lumires n'exclut en aucun cas la sensibilit. Raison et sentiment dialoguent au sein mme de la philosophie des Lumires. Ses penseurs sont tous capables de rigueur intellectuelle mais aussi de sensibilit. Cette poque cultive un got particulirement prononc pour les crits totalisants qui rassemblent l'ensemble des connaissances de leur temps, les bilans gnraux du savoir. Cet idal va trouver sa ralisation dans l' de Diderot et D'Alembert, publie entre 1750 et 1770, dont le but tait de sortir le peuple de l'ignorance par une diffusion trs large du savoir. Comme les humanistes de la Renaissance, les philosophes des Lumires s'intressent divers domaines : l'Amricain Thomas Jefferson avait reu une formation juridique mais pratiquait galement l' archologie et l' architecture. Benjamin Franklin eut une carrire de diplomate et de physicien. Condorcet crivit sur des sujets aussi diffrents que le commerce, les finances, l'ducation ou la science. Les origines sociales des philosophes sont diverses : beaucoup sont issus de familles bourgeoises (Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson), d'autres de milieux plus modestes ( Emmanuel Kant , Benjamin Franklin, Denis Diderot) ou encore de la noblesse (Montesquieu, Condorcet). Un certain nombre d'entre eux avaient reu une ducation religieuse (Denis Diderot, Louis de Jaucourt ) ou une formation juridique (Montesquieu, Thomas Jefferson). Les philosophes constituaient des rseaux et communiquaient par lettres. On connat la correspondance violente entre Rousseau et Voltaire. Les grands esprits du XVIII e sicle se rencontraient et discutaient dans les salons, les cafs ou les acadmies. Parce qu'ils critiquaient l'ordre tabli, les philosophes taient poursuivis par les autorits et devaient recourir des subterfuges pour viter la prison. Franois-Marie Arouet prit le pseudonyme de Voltaire. Thomas Jefferson rdigea en 1774 un rapport destin aux dlgus de Virginie du Premier Congrs continental , qui se runissait pour discuter des griefs des colonies l'gard de la Grande-Bretagne. En raison du contenu du texte, il fut contraint de le publier anonymement. La valut Denis Diderot d'tre emprisonn au fort de Vincennes pour sa remise en cause de la religion. Accus d'avoir rdig des pamphlets contre le rgent Philippe III d'Orlans , Voltaire fut emprisonn la Bastille. Montesquieu publia de faon anonyme les en 1721 en Hollande. De 1728 1734, il visita plusieurs pays d'Europe. Les penseurs et les savants formaient une communaut internationale. Ben Franklin, Tom Jefferson, Adam Smith, Hume ou Galiani sjournrent plusieurs annes en France. Face la censure et aux difficults financires, les philosophes recouraient souvent la protection d'aristocrates et de mcnes : Malesherbes et la marquise de Pompadour , favorite de Louis XV , soutinrent ainsi Diderot. Marie-Thrse Geoffrin (1699-1777) subventionna une partie de la publication de l' . Elle organisait un salon bihebdomadaire, recevant des artistes, des savants, des gens de lettres et des philosophes , de 1749 1777. L'autre grand salon de l'poque des Lumires tait celui de Claudine de Tencin. Dans les annes 1720 , Voltaire dut s'exiler en Angleterre o il s'enquit des ides de John Locke. Les philosophes luttaient gnralement moins contre le pouvoir royal que contre l'hgmonie ecclsiastique et nobiliaire : dans sa dfense de Jean Calas , Voltaire dfendait ainsi la justice royale contre les excs d'une justice provinciale juge plus fanatique [rf. necessary]. Bien des monarques europens Charles III d'Espagne , Marie-Thrse et Joseph II d'Autriche, Catherine II de Russie , Gustave III de Sude lisaient et apprciaient les philosophes. Comme Voltaire, qui fut accueilli la cour de Frdric II de Prusse ou Diderot, qui fut accueilli la cour de Catherine II , les philosophes comme d'Holbach se montraient favorables au despotisme clair dans l'esprance de voir leurs ides se rpandre le plus rapidement possible en touchant directement la tte de l'tat [ rf. souhaite]. La suite des vnements devait montrer aux Philosophes les limites de leurs ambitions chez des souverains plus despotes qu'clairs [rf. necessary]. Seul Rousseau revendiqua avec constance l'galit politique, qui devint par la suite un idal rvolutionnaire. The Enlightenment, the source of the French Revolution?
The European colonies
The lounges and cafes
Academies, libraries, lodges and the press
The echo of the Enlightenment
Change of Representation
Ideal philosopher
Coexistence of feelings and reason
Idal encyclopdique : tout connatre
Influences de la pense des Lumires
Prosopographie des philosophes des Lumires
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