2. ❖18th century.
❖Age of optimism, belief in
progress, new values of
freedom, rights, and equality.
❖Humanity beginning to
master the world.
❖Reason triumphs over the
authority of tradition.
4. 1.Clergy – those who pray;
2.Nobility – those who fight;
3.Everyone else – those who toil.
Not connected with money – many
members of third estate were
richer than other two.
Old Regime
5. ❖First two estates usually
represented less than 5% of the
population.
Old Regime
7. ❖Old regime also a society of
privileges, enforceable at law.
❖Certain noblemen could wear
a sword in public, have a coat
of arms, and not have to
remove their hat in the
presence of the king.
Old Regime
8. ❖Some regions were exempt from
certain taxes or did not have to
send men to do military service.
❖Nobility and Church had tax
exemptions or reduced rates.
❖Church had special courts to try
clergy for violations of law.
Old Regime
9. ❖Top of hierarchy
were absolute
monarchs who ruled
by divine right.
❖Most famous: Louis
XIV (1643-1715) of
France.
Old Regime
10. ❖Leading intellectual figures
of Enlightenment were
French.
❖Referred to themselves as
philosophes.
❖Liberal and curious about the
world.
Knowledge and Progress
11.
12. ❖Hated evils of society and
spoke out against
intolerance.
❖Shared belief in progress
of knowledge and making
the world better for all.
Knowledge and Progress
13. ❖Philosophes accepted scientific
method as basis of new
knowledge.
❖Great faith in power of reason.
❖Also tended to be skeptics,
refusing to accept anything as
true unless proof was verifiable.
Knowledge and Progress
15. ❖Most famous philosophes was
Francois Marie Arouet
(1694-1778).
❖Pen name – Voltaire.
❖Took a critical and witty
stance on wide variety of
issues.
Knowledge and Progress
16.
17. ❖Major work, Philosophical
Letters, resulted from years
living in England.
❖Contrasted France with
England – praised English
liberty and attacked French
absolutism.
Knowledge and Progress
18. ❖Also challenged the
Catholic Church in France.
❖Attacked political structure.
❖Voltaire admired thinkers
like Bacon, Locke, and
Newton.
Knowledge and Progress
19. ❖Resented by French
authorities, who burned
Voltaire’s book.
❖Voltaire admired time of
Louis XIV, Athenian Greece,
Roman Empire, and Italian
Renaissance.
Knowledge and Progress
20. ❖Measure of greatness for
Voltaire was culture.
❖In Candide (1759), Voltaire used
philosophical tale to express
doubts about all being for the
best.
❖http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/voltaire-francois-
marie-arouet-known-1694-1778-writer
Knowledge and Progress
21. ❖His main character, innocent youth,
journeyed through the world,
encountering ideas and experiences that
ridiculed the philosophy of optimism.
❖Pangloss, Candide’s teacher, kept
telling him in the face of misfortune and
injustice that this is “the best of all
possible worlds.”
Knowledge and Progress
22. ❖Another character, Martin, a
gloomy pessimist, believed that
the devil is in control of the world.
❖It was Candide who chose
neither optimism nor pessimism,
but told his friends, “we must
cultivate our garden.”
Knowledge and Progress
23. ❖Voltaire’s attacks on existing
institutions in France often
centred on Catholic Church.
❖He viewed the institution as
corrupt and intolerant.
❖Also anti-Semitic.
Knowledge and Progress
24. ❖(1712 – 1778), more
popular than Voltaire.
❖Wrote The Social Contract
(1762): “Man was born free,
and everywhere he is in
chains.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
25.
26. ❖For Rousseau, civilization had
its drawbacks.
❖He ascribed evil in society to
the institutions that it supported.
❖Private property made us
selfish and destroyed natural
goodness.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
27. ❖Did not mean an
abandonment of civil society.
❖He redefined sovereignty by
placing it in the hands of the
people, who were the ultimate
judges of public interest.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
28. ❖Human beings need both liberty
and society.
❖They entered into a social
contract among themselves
whereby they gave up certain
personal liberties in exchange for
protection, but retained ultimate
sovereignty.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
29. ❖Rousseau focused on the nature
of community.
❖Believed individuals needed civil
society; sociability was part of
nature.
❖Yet, he maintained that the
community was more than the sum
of the individuals and their wishes.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
30. ❖Community had an identity
and a will, what Rousseau
referred to as the General Will.
❖Not the will of the majority
(could be evil); but will of
community in its noblest
sense.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
31. ❖Egalitarian thinker.
❖Attacked private property.
❖Believed direct democracy in small
polity or government.
❖Introduced new element into
Enlightenment thought –
sentiments and feelings, rather than
reason alone.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
32. ❖Unhappy with philosophes
and attacked artificiality of
society.
❖Claimed that each child
was a special person who
had to be carefully nurtured.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
33. ❖Children were innocent.
❖His pleas for a life of sentiment
and passion became the basis of
the Romantic Movement in the
next generation.
❖https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=VqOaG24aPSc
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
34. ❖Thinkers unconcerned with
economic questions.
❖Those who attached Church
and nobility proposed
reforms that would allow
greater freedom of economy.
Economy
35. ❖A. R. J. Turgot invented slogan
of economic liberalism: laissez-
faire.
❖Most influential economic work
of century was Adam Smith’s An
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of
the Wealth of Nations (1776).
Economy
36.
37. ❖Smith wished to encourage
free trade and competition in
order to create more wealth.
❖He believed that the
economy should be self-
regulating based on the law of
supply and demand.
Economy
38. ❖If individuals would pursue
their own self-interest, wealth
would be increased and the
economy would work
according to natural laws
(put forth by Newton).
Economy
39. ❖Division of labour would
result in greater efficiency
and free trade would force
industries and states to
operate only in areas where
they could compete.
Economy
40. ❖Imagined a free
expanding economy
working harmoniously if
regulated by an “invisible
hand.”
❖Criticisms?
Economy
42. ❖Well-known Enlightenment
thinkers were virtually all men.
❖Women did have important
role – organizers of the salon.
❖Began as a way for small
group of elite women to satisfy
educational needs.
The Salon
43. ❖Evolved into meetings of
intellectuals guided by hostesses.
❖Most famous was Marie-
Therese Geoffrin (1699-1777).
❖Ran two salons (Monday for
artists, Wednesday for men of
letters).
The Salon
45. ❖Participants were
admitted based on their
accomplishments, rather
than social status.
❖Main activity of the salon
was conversation.
The Salon
46. ❖Hostess would direct
conversation and keep male
participants under control.
❖Women held this position
as a result of Enlightenment
beliefs about gender roles:
The Salon
47. ❖Women and men are
different in nature but
complimentary, “feminine”
sensibility balancing
“masculine” reason.
❖1770s, salons began to
decline.
The Salon
48. ❖New institutions, such as
Masonic lodges and clubs,
came to displace salons.
❖These institutions were more
open, no letter of introduction
necessary, and offered
marginal role for women.
The Salon
49. ❖Women in Enlightenment were
affected by new ideas about nature,
human nature, and society.
❖Also put forth concepts of separate
spheres for men and women based on
“natural” differences between genders
and women’s inferior intellectual
qualities and superior sensibility.
The Salon
50. ❖Desire among certain rulers to
make governments more effective
and strengthen their economies
and make military more powerful.
❖Method was to employ
Enlightenment principles of
reason and tolerance to challenge
tradition and carry out reforms.
Enlightened Despotism
51. ❖Believed they should
foster prosperity and social
progress.
❖Resulted in formal law
codes in Austria and
Prussia in the late 1700s.
Enlightened Despotism
