french revolution; session ii enlightenment

L’ ÉclairissementThe French Revolution

session iiThe Enlightenment

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

L’ ÉclairissementThe French Revolution

session iiThe Enlightenment

A Philosopher giving a Lecture on the Orrery in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, ca 1766


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Wright_of_Derby


Major topics for this session

•Medieval Worldview

•Scientific Revolution

•Newton and Locke

• Aufclärung

•French Enlightenment

•Salons


Medieval Worldview


St Jerome in his StudyAuthor : ANTONELLO DA MESSINADate :c. 1460Technique :Oil on wood, 46 x 36,5 cmType :religiousForm :paintingLocation :National Gallery, London


the war against paganism

• St Jerome, c.347-420, is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin, the version known as the Vugate

• this would be the only version available, and it only to wealthy churches and monastic houses, until the 15th century

• the vast classical library was destroyed as part of the campaign against pagan beliefs

• not until Aquinas, c. 1225-1274, would the “pagan writers” be deemed worthy of study by Christians

Ghirlandaio’s Jerome (1480)Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The Batlló Crucifix -- a 12th century Romanesque carved wood crucifix. The magnificently decorated and well-preserved sculpture is thought to have come from the Pyrenees. As with much medieval art, its creator is unknown, although a medieval legend credits Nicodemus with producing the sculpture soon after the actual Crucifixion, a pious tradition repeated elsewhere in Europe in connection with similar monumental crosses (e.g., the Holy Face of Lucca)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesque_art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesque_art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_carving

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_carving

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifix

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifix

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrenees

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrenees

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicodemus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicodemus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Face_of_Lucca

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Face_of_Lucca

the cross of San Damiano

c. 1100

The famous cross, said to have inspired Francis to “rebuild my Church . ” It s Chr i s to logy i s transitional from the triumphalist Christus Rex of the preceding example to the next representation


The Isenheim altarpiece of Matthias Grünewaldbetween 1512 and 1516


the cult of relics

the gilded reliquary or châsse of St Taurin


Medieval Universities

• 12th c.-the University of Paris is first mentioned in 1170 by Matthew of Paris at his acceptance into “the fellowship of the elect Masters”

• 1182-Pope Innocent III had completed his studies here at the age of 18

• the colleges grew up around Notre Dame Cathedral as a corporation similar to other medieval corporations, such as guilds of merchants or artisans

• the medieval Latin term universitas had the more general meaning of a guild: universitas magistrorum et scholarum (guild of masters and scholars)

• universities had four faculties: Arts, Medicine, Law & Theology

• students were often very young, entering the school at age 13 or 14 and staying for 6 to 12 years


SCHOLASTICISM; TRIVIUM & QUADRIVIUM

• the Arts Faculty was the lowest, but required of all students before entering the “higher faculties”

• the Trivium (three roads)

• grammar, rhetoric & logic

• the Quadrivium (four roads) --based on the Pythagorean division of mathematics

• arithmetic (number in itself)

• geometry (number in space)

• music (number in time)

• astronomy or cosmology (number in space and time)


AUCTORITAS (authority)

• by the late middle ages (14th & 15th centuries, post-Aquinas) the Greek philosophers had become the authorities in much of the university curriculum

• since textbooks were nonexistent the cursus studium (manner of study) was for the master to read his notes (lecture) on Aristotle or whomever and for the students to make their copies (take notes)

• needless to say, such an atmosphere was not conducive to challenging academic authority

• debate was taught in Rhetoric, but it wasn’t applied to, for example, medicine, where the works of Galen (129-199) were the authority on anatomy, those of Ptolemy (c. 90-c. 168) for astronomy


Raphael’s School of Athens"esco painted 1505-1510, in the Apostolic Palace, the Vatican


1: Zeno of Citium 2: Epicurus 3: Federico II of Mantua? 4: Boethius or Anaximander or Empedocles? 5: Averroes 6: Pythagoras 7: Alcibiades or Alexander the Great? 8: Antisthenes or Xenophon? 9: Hypatia (Francesco Maria della Rovere)[9] 10: Aeschines or Xenophon? 11: Parmenides? 12: Socrates 13: Heraclitus (Michelangelo) 14: Plato (Leonardo da Vinci) 15: Aristotle 16: Diogenes 17: Plotinus? 18: Euclid or Archimedes with students (Bramante)? 19: Zoroaster 20: Ptolemy? R: Apelles (Raphael) 21: Protogenes (Il Sodoma, Perugino, or Timoteo Viti)

The parenthetical names are the contemporary characters from whom Raphael is thought to have drawn his likenesses.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Citium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Citium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_II,_Duke_of_Mantua

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_II,_Duke_of_Mantua

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anicius_Manlius_Severinus_Boethius

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anicius_Manlius_Severinus_Boethius

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximander

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximander

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empedocles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empedocles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisthenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisthenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Maria_I_della_Rovere

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Maria_I_della_Rovere

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschines



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donato_Bramante

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donato_Bramante

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apelles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apelles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protogenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protogenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_Sodoma

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_Sodoma

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perugino

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perugino

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timoteo_Viti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timoteo_Viti

Johannes Gutenberg; c. 1398-1468


the vernaculars

• 1199-Pope Innocent III banned unauthorized versions of the Bible in reaction to the Cathar and Waldensian heresies

• 1408-the Oxford Synod banned John Wyclif ’s Middle English translation of the Bible

• c. 1450-a Hussite translation in Hungarian appeared

• 1478-a Catalan version

• 1516-Froben printed Erasmus’ Greek New Testament

• 1522-Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into German

• 1526-the first complete Dutch Bible was printed in Antwerp


Scientific Revolution


Scientific Revolution

Copernicus in conversation with Godby Jan Mateyko (1872)


and just as if some kingdom or state were to direct its counsels and affairs not by letters and reports from ambassadors and trustworthy messengers, but by the gossip of the streets; such exactly is the system of management introduced into philosophy with relation to experience. Nothing duly investigated, nothing verified, nothing counted, weighed, or measured, is to be found in natural history; and what is in observation is loose and vague, is in formation deceptive and treacherous.

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620), trans. Spedding

from Authority to Doubt


1543

DE REVOLUTIONIBUSORBIUM COELESTIUM

DE HUMANI CORPORISFABRICA


better late than never; 21 May 2010


Galileo Galilei; 1564-1642


Johannes Kepler; 1571-1630


René Descartes; 1596-1650


Cartesianism

• the first principle: doubt

• 1641-Meditations on First Philosophy--”innate ideas”

• cogito ergo sum

• deductive system building

• analytic or Cartesian geometry: the union of algebra and geometry

• x,y coordinates, y=mx +b (the equation for a straight line) &c.


Thomas Hobbes; 1588-1679


the state of nature and its laws

• two proofs for the equality of men in the state of nature

• three principal causes of quarrel: competition, diffidence & glory

• “Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them a# in awe, they are in that condition which is ca#ed war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man….and which is worst of a#, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

• right of nature, jus naturale, vs. law of nature, lex naturalis

• first law: seek peace, but failing that, by a& means we can, to defend ourselves

• second law: that a man be wi&ing when others are so too...to lay down this right to a& things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would a&ow other men against himself


The only way to erect such a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their own industry, and by the fruits of the earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills...unto one will…. This is more than consent, or concord; it is a real unity of them all, in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man, in such manner, as if every man should say to every man, I authorise and give up my right of governing myself, to this man, or this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorise a& his actions in like manner. This done, the multitude so united in one person, is called a COMMONWEALTH, in Latin CIVITAS. This is the generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather to speak more reverently, of that mortal god, to which we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defence.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, CHAPTER XVII, 1651

the covenant (social contract)


Two major phenomena...are of prime significance for Hobbes and all the [political] thinkers who follow him: the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution.

Both of these complex movements stem from the breakup of the medieval order. Both took shape in the intellectual climate of discovery which the printing press and the voyages to the New World fostered. Both were bitterly resisted as intolerable changes to the status quo. Both ushered in the condition which we take for granted in America: no one “owns” the truth; ultimately, the individual is responsible for his own beliefs. The awesome power represented by knowledge is not a state monopoly administered by the state religion. Hobbes became an enthusiastic student of “the new learning.” He discussed his views with such luminaries as Galileo and Francis Bacon. His effort to develop theories of human behavior which didn’t require a theological foundation and his willingness to engage in academic disputes earned him the epithet of “father of atheists.”

James Powers, Justice & Power; A Primer in Political Philosophy, p. 15


Newton and Locke


Newton and Locke

Newton’s own copy

1687

THE MATHEMATICALPRINCIPLES

OF NATURALPHILOSOPHY


Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in Night,God said “Let Newton be” and a& was light

Alexander Pope


the transitional figure

• physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian

• 1687-his Principia is the most influential book in the history of science

• besides the law of universal gravitation, he formulated the three laws of motion which would dominate mechanics until Einstein

• he also built the first reflecting telescope and formulated a theory of color based on observing the function of a prism

• he simultaneously, but independently, developed calculus with Gottfried LeibnizSir Isaac Newton

1643-1727


the gravitational effect of two objects varies directly with the product of their masses and inversely to the square of their distance


Newton’s Laws of Motion

Or, if you prefer, Laws I & II in Latin

I. Absent an outside force, objects in motion will stay in motion, those at rest, will remain at rest

II. f=ma (where f=force, m=mass and a=acceleration)

III.Whenever a first body exerts a force f on a second body, the second body exerts a force -f on the first. f and -f are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction


Newton’s telescopea replica


a triangular prism dispersing lightTuesday, May 25, 2010

part of the discussion

formulating calculus

a page from the Principia


“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

in a letter to Robert Hooke, 1676


During the second half if the seventeenth century the Scientific Revolution continued to sweep before it the...Aristotelianism of the late medieval scholastics. John Locke read avidly about the latest discoveries and newest experiments. His faith in man’s potential for reasonableness fills every page of the Of Civil Government. As Newton sought laws which would bring order and predictability to the physical universe, Locke sought a constitutional balance in England which would bring order to the political scene.

Powers, Justice & Power, p. 22


Locke’s Political Theory

• the first treatise, against Filmer, is little read today

• he was Britain’s Bossuet, advocating divine right of kings as a hedge against revolution and civil war

• the Second Treatise or Of Civil Government, contains the doctrines of natural law, natural rights, and the right to revolution which Jefferson will copy almost verbatim into the Declaration of Independence


CHAP II -- OF THE STATE OF NATURE

• ...we must consider what state men are natura#y in, and that is, a state of perfect &eedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature; without asking leave, or depending on the wi# of any other man

• A state also of equality, wherein a# the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, on one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species...be equal...without subordination or subjection

• The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches a# mankind, who wi# but consult it, that being a# equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions

John Locke1632-1704


...And here we have the plain difference between the state of nature and the state of war, which however some men have confounded, are as far distant, as a state of peace, good-will, mutual assistance and preservation, and a state of enmity, malice, violence and mutual destruction, are one from another. Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature. But force, or a declared design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war: and it is the want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against an aggressor, though he be in society and a fellow-subject...

CHAP III -- OF THE STATE OF WAR


. . .The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property [defined previously as including life, liberty and material goods]. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting.

First, There wants an established, settled, known law, received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong…

Secondly, In the state of nature there wants an known and indifferent judge…

Thirdly, In the state of nature there often wants power to back and support the sentence when right, and to give it due execution…

Thus mankind, not withstanding all the privileges of the state of nature, being but in an ill condition while they remain in it, are quickly driven into society….

CHAP IX -- OF THE ENDS OF POLITICAL SOCIETY


...The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power and moderate the dominion of every part of the society: for since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which everyone designs to secure by entering into society...whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress...and endeavor...an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates,...the people have a right to resume their original liberty and by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society….

CHAP XIX -- OF THE DISSOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT


...But it will be said, this hypothesis lays up a ferment for frequent rebellion. To which I answer.

First, no more than any other hypothesis: for when people are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill-usage of arbitrary power...the same [i.e., rebellion] will happen….He must have lived but a little while in the world, who has not seen examples of this….

Second, I answer, such revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be borne by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavor to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected...

CHAP XIX -- OF THE DISSOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT


Locke on Reason and Education

• 1690-in this work Locke argued against Descartes’ doctrine of “innate ideas” and replaces it with the theory of the mind as a tabula rasa (blank slate)

• “all knowledge begins with the senses” -- a foundation concept for the philosophy of empiricism

1690


Locke on Reason and Education

• 1690-in this work Locke argued against Descartes’ doctrine of “innate ideas” and replaces it with the theory of the mind as a tabula rasa (blank slate)

• “all knowledge begins with the senses” -- a foundation concept for the philosophy of empiricism

• he also wrote on education, arguing that it should be practical rather than “classical” and open to women and the lower classes; attention should be paid to the child’s physical needs, discipline should be based on esteem and disgrace rather than rewards and punishment

1690


Scientific Revolution & Enlightenment Compared

• both impact how people view their world

• both begin with the educated few and then diffuse out to the Many

• the Scientific Revolution is much more focused on the work of learned specialists, astronomers, physicians, artisans in the field of optics, &c…the so-called “hard sciences”

• the Enlightenment opens the findings of the new science into broader fields and affects more people’s lives more deeply , i.e., applied science and the “soft sciences” e.g., political science, sociology, psychology

• the Agricultural Revolution (first three quarters of the 18th century)

• the Democratic Revolution (last half of the 18th century)

• the Industrial Revolution (last quarter of the 18th century on)


Aufclärung


Aufclärung

ArtistJoseph Wright of DerbyYear1768TypeOil-on-canvasDimensions183 cm × 244 cm (72 in × 94! in)LocationNational Gallery, London, England

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gallery,_London

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gallery,_London

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England

Central Ideals of the Enlightenment

•Reason

•Nature

•Progress

•Liberty

•Equality


its scope•temporal

•geographic

•political

•economic

•social

•means of dissemination


the 17th and 18th century coffeehouse“penny universities”

• coffee, chocolate or tea--a penny a cup

• no alcohol, hence rational conversations

• “no man of any station need give his place to a finer man”

• if one should swear, he would have to forfeit twelve-pence

• if a quarrel broke out the instigator would have to stand his victim to a cup of coffee

• no criticism of the state, religion or the scriptures, no games of chance

• books and newspapers are available


French Enlightenment


French Enlightenment

painting in 1728Tuesday, May 25, 2010

In the midst of all the governments that decide the fate of men; in the bosom of so many states, the majority of them despotic ... there exists a certain realm which holds sway only over the mind ... that we honour with the name Republic, because it preserves a measure of independence, and because it is almost its essence to be free. It is the realm of talent and of thought.

Republic of LettersTowards the end of the eighteenth century, the editor of Histoire de la République des Lettres en France, a literary survey, described the Republic of Letters as being:

The ideal of the Republic of Letters was the sum of a number of Enlightenment ideals: an egalitarian realm governed by knowledge that could act across political boundaries and rival state power. It was a forum that supported "free public examination of questions regarding religion or legislation"…. The people who participated in the Republic of Letters, such as Diderot and Voltaire, are frequently known today as important Enlightenment figures. Indeed, the men who wrote Diderot's Encyclopédie arguably formed a microcosm of the larger "republic".

Wikipedia


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire


Allegorical frontispiece of the Encyclopédie, 1772Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Detail from the frontispiece. The work is laden with symbolism: The figure in the centre represents truth — surrounded by bright light (the central symbol of the enlightenment). Two other figures on the right, reason and philosophy, are tearing the veil from truth.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_frontispiece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_frontispiece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol

Denis Diderot; 1713-1784

• born a provincial bourgeois, he was sent to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris

• 1732-MA in philosophy, abandoned theology for law

• 1734-dropped his studies to become a writer, his father disowned him and he led a bohemian life for the next decade

• 1742-befriended Rousseau

• 1750-commenced his major project, the Encyclopedia, for the next twenty years he experienced controversy, drudgery, persecution and desertion of friends

• ignored by the establishment, his ruined eyesight and poverty were finally relieved by the patronage of Catherine the Greatpainted by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

1769


Les Encyclopédistesmost famous of the more than 140 contributors (#) = number of articles written, when known

• Étienne Bonnot de Condillac-philosopher and epistemologist, psychology and philosophy of the mind

• Jean le Rond d’Alembert-(1,309) co-editor with Diderot, mathematician and physicist

• Baron d’Holbach-(414) French-German author, best known for his atheism, kept a salon

• Denis Diderot-(5,394)

• Baron de Montesquieu-social commentator and political philosopher, much more later

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau-(344) ditto

• Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune-economist and statesman, early advocate for economic liberalism

• François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)-(26)famous for his wit, atheism, and advocacy of civil liberties


Chateau de la BrèdeBegun in 1306 on the site of a previous castle in the Gironde, near Bordeaux in South-Western France. Here Montesquieu lived and wrote for most of his life


Charles-Louis de Secondat,

baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu; 1689-1755

• scion of the ancient nobility, independently wealthy, nevertheless he would write a mixture of radical and traditional political theory

• because it was known from his childhood that he would inherit the presidency of the Parlement of Bordeaux (1716-26), he was educated in the classics and the law

• he was a “man of letters,” i.e., “never worked a day in his life,” a citizen in the Republic of Letters


his early career

• 1721-Lettres persanes (Persian Letters)

• 1726,’28-Académie &ançais;”blackballed” by the king the first time

• 1729-1731-travels in England

• Lord Chesterfield

• fellow of the Royal Society

• contrast with Voltaire’s experience

• 1734-Considerations on the Greatness and Decline of Rome


De l’esprit des lois; 1748

• published anonymously, its initial French reception was unfavorable from both supporters and opponents of the regime

• 1751-the Catholic Church placed it on the Index

• it received the highest praise from the rest of Europe, especially England

• it was widely read in British North America among the political classes


key concepts

• three forms of government

• monarchy, republic, & despotism

• the beneficial role of the aristocracy

• the effect of climate upon society and laws

• constitutionalism

• separation of powers

• admiration for the British constitution

a first edition offered for $11,000


BOOK VTHAT THE LAWS GIVEN BY

THE LEGISLATOR OUGHT TO BE RELATIVE TO THE

PRINCIPLE OF GOVERNMENTCHAPTER VIII-In what manner the Laws ought to

be relative to the Principle of Government in an Aristocracy

If the people are virtuous in an aristocracy, they enjoy very near the same happiness as in a popular government, and the state grows powerful. But as a great share of virtue is very rare where men’s fortunes are so unequal, the laws must tend as much as possible to infuse a spirit of moderation, and endeavour to re-establish that equality which was necessarily removed by the constitution.

The spirit of moderation is what we call virtue in an aristocracy; it supplies the place of the spirit of equality in a popular state….


BOOK VTHAT THE LAWS GIVEN BY

THE LEGISLATOR OUGHT TO BE RELATIVE TO THE

PRINCIPLE OF GOVERNMENTCHAPTER XIII-An Idea of Despotic Power

When the savages of Louisiana are desirous of fruit, they cut the tree to the root, and gather the fruit. This is an emblem of despotic power.


BOOK XIVOF LAWS AS RELATIVE TO THE

NATURE OF THE CLIMATECHAPTER I-General Idea

If it be true that the temper of the mind, and the passions of the heart are extremely different in different climates, the laws ought to be relative both to the variety of those passions, and to the variety of those tempers.

CHAPTER II-Of the Difference of Menin Different Climates

A cold air constringes the external fibres of the body; this increases their elasticity…People are therefore more vigorous in cold climates….


BOOK XVIIOF LAWS IN THE RELATION THEY BEAR TO THE NATURE

OF THE SOILCHAPTER V-Of the Inhabitants of Islands

The inhabitants of islands [read Britain] have a higher relish for liberty than those of the continent [read France]. Islands are commonly of a small extent; one part of the people cannot be so easily employed to oppress the other; the sea separates them from great empires; tyranny cannot so well support itself within a small compass; conquerors are stopped by the sea; and the islanders being without the reach of their arms, more easily preserve their own laws.


Salons


Salons

Anciet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier (French, 1743-1824): Madame Geo)in's salon in 1755, oil on canvas, Château de Malmaison, Rueil-Malmaison, France. Painted in 1812


salon (fr. It., salone, a large hall, sala)

• from the place to its purpose, a gathering “either to please or to educate”

• the first Parisian salon was that of the marquise de Ramboui#et (1588-1665)

• this historical institution is of great interest to feminist, Marxist, social, cultural and intellectual historians

• most, but not all, of the salons were presided over by women. Among the most celebrated 18th century Paris salons were those of these salonnières:

• Mme Geoffrin

• Julie de Lespinasse, d’Alembert’s lover

• Mme d’Epinay, Rousseau’s benefactress

• Mmes Necker, Helvétius, Condorcet & Roland


Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin (1699 - 1777)

From 1750-1777, Madame Geoffrin played host to many of the most influential Philosophes and Encyclopédistes of her time. Her association with several prominent dignitaries and public figures from across Europe has earned Madame Geoffrin international recognition. Her patronage and dedication to both the philosophical Men of Letters and talented artists that frequented her house is emblematic of her role as guide and protector. In her salon on the rue Saint-Honoré, Madame Geoffrin demonstrated qualities of politeness and civility that helped stimulate and regulate intellectual discussion.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9distes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9distes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_Saint-Honor%C3%A9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_Saint-Honor%C3%A9

"Geoffrin, who acted as a mentor and model for other salonnières, was responsible for two innovations that set Enlightenment salons apart from their predecessors and from other social and literacy gatherings of the day. She invented the Enlightenment salon. First, she made the one-o'clock dinner rather than the traditional late-night supper the sociable meal of the day, and thus she opened up the whole afternoon for talk. Second, she regulated these dinners, fixing a specific day of the week for them. After Geoffrin launched her weekly dinners, the Parisian salon took on the form that made it the social base of the Enlightenment Republic of Letters: a regular and regulated formal gathering hosted by a women in her own home which served as a forum and locus of intellectual activity."

Dena Goodman, Republic of Letters, pp. 90-91


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Letters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Letters

Jean François de Troy (1679 - 1752), Reading "om Molière around 1728, Oil on canvas, 72.4 x 90.8 cm; Collection late Marchioness of Cholmondeley, Houghton


Voltaire; 1694-1778

• born to a minor official in Paris, educated by the Jesuits at Louis-le-Grand, immersed in Latin and Greek

• later he would gain fluency in Italian, Spanish & English

• he determined to be a writer, in opposition to his father’s choice for him of the law

• his energetic attacks on church and state earned him exiles and imprisonment, including eleven months in the Bastille

• 1718-he adopted the name “Voltaire” an anagram of “AROVET LI” the Latinized spelling of his surname and the initials of “le jeune”(“the younger”). He used at least 178 separate pen names!

• during his exiles he resided in Great Britain where he developed an appreciation for their government and society, as did both Diderot and Montesquieu during their stays there

François-Marie Arouetat age 70


Voltaire’s writings

• 1734-Philosophical Letters on the English-- after more than two years there he compares their religions, government and society favorably to that of France. copies burned and again exile

• 1752-Micromegas--perhaps the first science fiction, ambassadors from another planet witnessing the follies of mankind





• 1759-Candide--this satire on Leibniz’s optimistic determinism is his best known work





• 1759-Candide--this satire on Leibniz’s optimistic determinism is his best known work

• 1764-Dictionnaire Philosophique--a series of articles mainly in Christian history and dogmas

• ecrasez l’infame (“the infamy” refers to the Catholic Church!)


Enlightenment and Religion"What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason."

Voltaire, A Philosophical Dictionary

• Deism

• Pantheism

• civil religion

• Le culte de la Raison, le culte de l'Être Suprême ou le théophilanthropisme


Jean-Jacques Rousseau; 1712-1778

• born in the French-speaking Swiss republic of Geneva

• his father a watchmaker and inventor

• his mother, who died giving him birth, had married “beneath her station”

• 1725-aged 13, apprenticed to an engraver who beat him

• 1728-missed curfew, ran away, Mme de Warens (age 29)

• his relations with women

• Thérèse Levasseur

• no vocation

• ministry, tutoring, diplomacy, clerking, musicin 1753 (age 41) byMaurice Quinten

de la Tour


Les Charmettesthe house where Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived with Mme de Warens

It is now a museum dedicated to Rousseau


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise-Louise_de_Warens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise-Louise_de_Warens

his early writing

• 1749-Dijon competition

• on the road to Vincennes jail

• 1750-Discours sur les sciences et les arts

• 1755-Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

• natural vs. “moral” (pol. & soc.), “the last term of inequality”

• 1755-Discourse on Political Economy (for Diderot)

• political equality and respect for the Volonte General

• universal public education

• egalitarian fiscal policy


a cosy retreat--L’Hermitagein the vale of Montmorency, now a Parisian suburb

15 km


Montmorency; 1756-62

• 1761- romance and Nouve#e Heloise




• 1762-Émile: Ou de l’education

• “fo&ow nature”




• 1762-Émile: Ou de l’education

• “fo&ow nature”

• progressive dogmas


blowup

He resented being at Mme d'Epinay's beck and call and detested the insincere conversation and shallow atheism of the Encyclopedistes whom he met at her table. Wounded feelings gave rise to a bitter three-way quarrel between Rousseau and Madame d'Epinay; her lover, the philologist Grimm; and their mutual friend, Diderot, who took their side against Rousseau. Diderot later described Rousseau as being, "false, vain as Satan, ungrateful, cruel, hypocritical, and wicked ... He sucked ideas from me, used them himself, and then affected to despise me".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Melchior,_baron_von_Grimm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Melchior,_baron_von_Grimm

Du Contrat Social; 1762

• Man is born &ee; and everywhere he is in chains

• One thinks himself the master of others, and sti# remains a greater slave than they

• How did this change come about?

• I do not know

• What can make it legitimate?

• That question I think I can answer


I suppose men to have reached the point at which the obstacles in the way of their preservation in the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the resources at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in that state….the human race would perish unless it changed its manner of existence…

The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution…

These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one--the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others...

BOOK ICHAPTER VI

THE SOCIAL COMPACT


Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over which he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.

If then we discard from the social contract what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms:“Each of us puts his person and a# his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body…

In order then that the social contract may not be a empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whosoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free….obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty.

BOOK ICHAPTER VI

THE SOCIAL COMPACT


Rousseau’s later life; 1762-1778 Rousseau spoke of "the cry of unparalleled fury" that went up across Europe. "I was an infidel, an atheist, a lunatic, a madman, a wild beast, a wolf ..."

• after the bombshell of The Social Contract

• proscriptions, exiles & paranoia

• Geneva, Bern, Paris, England, return to France under an assumed name

• 1765-David Hume

• “You don't know your man. I will tell you plainly, you're warming a viper in your bosom."-D’Holbach

• Voltaire- “This lover of mankind who orphaned his own children”

• 1770-Confessions-forbidden to publish, he gave private readings and created a sensation--Louise d’Épinay would enjoin publication until 1782

• 1776-78--peace at last

• Ermenonville-for his disciples, a place of pilgrimage


Jacques-Louis Pérée, Regenerated Man Gives Thanks to the Supreme Being,

1794–5, 41.5 x 29 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

With one hand he holds up the Rights of Man; in the other he wields a mattock. Beneath his feet lies the axed tree of the Old Regime,

the debris of aristocratic privilege and luxury. A shaft of lightning sears a crown

RIGHTSOF

MAN


for Rousseau, immortal glory; 1794

Sixteen years after his death, his remains were moved to the Panthéon in Paris in 1794, where they are located directly across from those of his contemporary, Voltaire. His tomb, in the shape of a rustic temple, on which, in bas relief an arm reaches out, bearing the torch of liberty, evokes Rousseau's deep love of nature and of classical antiquity.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panth%C3%A9on_(Paris)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panth%C3%A9on_(Paris)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_relief

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_relief