History 5: Lecture 12
The Enlightenment
Introduction
• Newtonian revolution>new faith in the order of nature
• Redefinition of man’s relationship to God; God now the
watchmaker of a law-governed universe
• The material world no longer a source of sin; nature now the
source of God’s most undistorted truths
• Cartesianism>systematic doubting relies on individual reason;
implicitly egalitarian: all men (and women) reasonable
I Critique of Authority
• Question everything and decide for yourself, based upon observation
and reason> attack on superstition and religion.
• Voltaire’s Candide (1759) embodies the new critical
spirit
• Theme of God and nature’s indifference to man
• Man must make his own world as best he can: work
II The New Sciences of Man
• Turning the scientific method on the human world: analysis
• The science of politics: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau>.man
in nature is free and equal>government should reflect natural law
• Psychology: The Lockean mind. From revelation to sensation
• Scientific history: Newton and Voltaire> a compendium of
useful knowledge rather than the celebration of glory
III Knowledge and Progress
• Descartes and Newton surpass the ancient philosophers
• If all knowledge comes from the senses rather than a fixed
set of truths in books then it is infinite and ever-expanding>improvement
and human progress is possible
• Knowledge must be gathered up and exchange in order to improve
man’s lot>The Encyclopedie (1751-77) of D’Alembert
and Diderot, is created to enlighten mankind; to dispel superstition
and spread light
IV The Pursuit of Happiness
• From the afterlife to here and now: happiness on earth is
attainable>cultivate your garden
• Rejection of the Christian idea of life as trial by suffering
• Instead, our material impulses can lead to the greater good
• Adam Smith: individual desire is a social good>creates
wealth for all; harmony of individual and social good
V The spread and triumph of the Enlightenment
• The Enlightenment as an underground movement (1680-1730)
• The Enlightenment as dissident party (1730-70)
• Political programs: Enlightened Absolutism (Voltaire); aristocratic
liberalism (Montesquieu); Republicanism (Rousseau)
• The triumph of the Enlightenment (1770-89)
Key Dates
1734 Voltaire: Philosophical Letters
1748 Montesquieu:Spirit of the Laws
1749 Rousseau: Discourse on the Origins of Inequality
1751-72 Diderot and D’Alembert: Encyclopedie
1759 Voltaire: Candide
1762 Rousseau: Social Contract
History 5: Lecture 13
ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM AND FRENCH REVOLUTION
Introduction
* Enlightened absolutism upgrades monarchies of central and Eastern
Europe
• French revolution until 1917 is the new model for political
change
• Revolution and French national identity; one or several revolutions?
I Making of Enlightened Absolutism
• Late 17thc: Northern and Eastern Europe sees generation of
new monarchs: Russia, Peter the Great (1682-1725); Prussia: Frederick
William (1640-1688); Austria Leopold I (1685-1705)
• Frederick II of Prussia (“the Great”) tolerant,
enlightened monarch, friend of Voltaire and Diderot
• Prussia becomes model for Russia under Catherine II (1762-96)
and Austria under Joseph II (1765-90) who attempts to free serfs.
II Failure of French reform
• Social features of old regime society in France: aristocracy
and peasantry
• King wants enlightened absolutism vs. nobles who want aristocratic
liberalism
• Emergence of Republicanism
• War and fiscal crisis of monarchy
III
French
Revolution: Constitutional monarchy phase (1789-1792) click
here for La Marseillaise ((Click
here for Marseillaise)
• Revolution of third estate (Jan-July 1789)
• Paris revolution, 14 July 1789 storming of Bastille
• Peasant revolution-revolt against feudalism
• Results: Declaration of Rights of Man. End to feudalism; nationalization
of Church lands; legal and administrative reforms:civil equality,
departments, national guard;constitutional monarchy- rule of propertied-poor,women
and slaves excluded.
IV War against the old regime
• King’s resistance (Flight to Varennes, 21 June 1791)
• Declaration of Pilnitz, August 1791
• French declare preemptive war against Austria April 20, 1792
• Fall of monarchy, August, 10 1792
• Global war against old regime monarchies, first ideological
war
• Why war?: defensive and offensive motivation; war radicalizes
revolution and creates self-sustaining pressures
•
V Terror and Utopia (Apri1793-July 1794)
• Revolution of the disenfranchised, sans-culottes (call for
the Maximum; women’s clubs; slave revolt (August 1791)
• Galvanizing the nation: abolition of slavery, Aug 29,1793;
levee en masse (August 1793)
• Repression: convergence of popular revolutionary movement
for social welfare, and need to reunify the nation.” making
terror the order of the day” September 4, 1793:civil war (Vendee);
factionalism (Danton, April 1794)
• Cultural revolution of the Year II
Conclusion
Birth of modern Europe- in France a new kind of polity comes into
being; the self-constituting territorial nation of self-governing
citizens rather than the dynastic kingdom.