Mock on, Voltaire

HUM 2052: Civilization IISummer 2010Dr. PerdigaoMay 27, 2010

From Ancient to Modern• Traditionalists: fear of results of individualism, lack of moral

responsibility, desire to uphold “established values”

• Moderns: saw significance of individual autonomy, education for women, intellectual and geographical exploration

• Both camps emphasized reason as guide, and Enlightenment as “the gaining of illumination by means of the power of the human mind” (Lawall 1)

• Yet recognized the limits of “reason” as well—belief in reason does not “necessarily make human beings reasonable” (2).

• Question of the possibility of the existence of an “entirely rational physical and moral universe” (2).

• Loss and liberation, crisis and opportunity

On the Shoulders of Giants• “By relying on convention, eighteenth-century writers could

be seen as trying to control an unstable world. The classical past, for many, provided an emblem of that stability, a standard of permanence. But some felt that the high valuing of the past was problematic, the problem epitomized by the quarrel of ancients versus moderns in England and France. At stake in this controversy was, among other things, the value of permanence as opposed to the value of change.” (6)[trying to control what is unstable with change, return to past as permanence]

• Belief that nothing could equal the works of Homer, that all would be poor and inadequate imitations.[Divide—whether we are better or worse than our predecessors]

• “Those proud to be moderns, on the other hand, held that men (possibly even women) standing on the shoulders of the ancients could see further than their predecessors. The new was conceivably more valuable than the old. One might discover flaws even in revered figures of the classical past. And not everything had yet been accomplished.” (6)[Authority of writing called into question, the reader’s role]

• Shift in centers—“God seemed to be moving further away” (1)• Divine right—that monarchs had authority of God—called into

question and rejected through period of civil war in England (King’s execution in 1649) and French by end of eighteenth century

• Religion still a “political reality”—with conflict between Protestant and Catholics abated yet resurgence with James II’s marriage to a Catholic and in France Louis XIV in 1685 revoked the Edict of Nantes (granting religious tolerance to Protestants) (1)

• Eighteenth century tumult—leads to rebellions against Stuart succession and American Revolution, internal divisions weighted more than struggles between nations

• Watchmaker, Great Chain of Being• Order of Newton’s universe or operation of a divine plan

(natural laws through which the universe operates)— a “watchmaker who winds a watch and leaves it running” (2).

• From Deism (existence of God evidenced by his creations) to the Great Chain of Being (man as apex in large continuum between society and the universe) (4).

(Re)placing Religion?

• Scientific Revolution in eighteenth century, “new, mechanical conception of nature” (Perry 401)

• Mathematics at center, all nature—physical objects and invisible forces—expressed mathematically (Perry 402)

• From medieval cosmology to natural philosophy, Renaissance Neo-Platonism, magic and mystical thought

• Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), scientific proof for existence of God, scholastics as followers

• Nicolaus Copernicus—heliocentric universe, work On The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543) begins Scientific Revolution

• Johannes Kepler, basis on Platonic ideal, force infusing physical order, ellipse

• Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), motion and mathematical laws (Perry 407); telescope (1609); work The Starry Messenger, study of moon; sun; Jupiter

• Attacks on Galileo by Scholastic priests; Liga attempt to silence him, using Aristotle and the Bible (prototype for Darwin?) (Perry 407)

• Threats to the Catholic church on all fronts• 1632-1633, Galileo’s teachings condemned, Galileo under

house arrest

Mechanisms

• Newton (1642-1727)• 1666 universal law of gravitation• 1687 Principia Mathematica—laws of inertia, acceleration, for

every action equal and opposite reaction• 1704 Optics, theory of light• Theories based on those of Kepler and Galileo• Rather than disconnect from religion, synthesis between

science and religion, ordered universe and church• Social theorists—Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning

(1605), goals of science to improve “humanity’s material condition and the advancement of trade and industry” (Perry 411)

• Rene Descartes, trained by Jesuits, rejects teachings—new science based on “knowability of the physical world” and in mathematics and reason (Perry 412); matter vs. spirit; mind vs. nature

• Late 1600s, challenge to religion, authority of the clergy• Printing press, dissemination of new ideas about nature

Inertia vs. Acceleration

• Knowledge based on observation, experimentation, or radical deduction, could be systematic, verifiable, progressive, and useful (Perry 414-415), no institution or dogma had “monopoly on truth,” use of scientific approach to produce knowledge for benefit of people, for “new and better age” (Perry 415)

• Weakening of traditional Christianity, question about God’s role in a mechanical universe

Revolutions

Reconfiguring Society• Hobbes sees man as savage who bands together “For the sake of

preservation and progress” (2).

• Notions of man as civilized independent of or part of a larger society

• A hierarchical ordering of society evolves, leading to new opportunities in education, with casualties among the female population with restriction in education (and a larger sense of their subordination to men) (2).

• Questions of limitations imposed on man (and woman)

• Questions writers raise during the period: “Swift, lashing the English for institutionalized hypocrisy; Pope, calling attention to ambiguities inherent in sexual mores; Voltaire and Johnson, sending naïve fictional protagonists to encounter the world’s inconsistencies of profession and practice—all of these writers call attention to the deceptiveness and the possible misuses of social norms as well as to their necessity” (3).

“Our Savages”• Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), born in Dublin to English parents

• M.A. from Oxford, clergyman in Anglican Church, political journalism; dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin

• Writing for oppressed Irish people

• Travel book with Gulliver’s Travels (1726); four imagined nations; Lilliput; Brobdingnag; book four “confronts problems inherent in the idealization of reason as sufficient guide to human conduct” (289); “animal and rational aspects of human nature” (289); Houyhnhnms—pure rationality

• A Modest Proposal (1729)— “attack on the economic oppression of the Irish by the English” (291); Irish as complicit by their apathy

• Return to cannibalism

• Representation of the American

Voltaire

Not Voltaire

“Voltaire is a singer/songwriter whose music has its roots deeply imbedded in European folk music. His songs speak of love and, most often, the loss thereof with the added twist of how best to seek revenge on the ones who have hurt you. Lyrically, he explores and reveals those moments of vulnerability most would rather not discuss and exploits with childish abandon those fleeting streaks of cruelty we all feel but choose not to act upon or even mention.”

From Enlightenment to the Romantics

Mock On, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau

Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, Mock on, ‘tis all in vain.You throw the sand against the wind,And the wind blows it back again.

And every sand becomes a GemReflected in the beams divine;Blown back, they blind the mocking Eye,But still in Israel’s paths they shine.

The Atoms of DemocritusAnd Newton’s Particles of lightAre sands upon the Red sea shore,Where Israel’s tents do shine so bright.

--William Blake (692)

Foundations• Voltaire, François Marie Arouet (1694-1778)• Travels to Dutch Republic and London—becomes philosophe

(French word for philosophers) (Perry 421)• Arrested during fight in Paris, anger at French, hostility like that

of exiled French Protestant• Ideas of John Locke and Isaac Newton, mathematical laws

govern the universe, shift to epistemology (Perry 427)• Freedom of thought, social and religious toleration that

countered French absolutism and power of French clergy, mix of bourgeois and aristocratic social groups

• Books banned in France• Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733)—constitutional

monarchy, Newtonian science, and religious toleration as models for Europe to implement (Perry 427)

• Attack on values of eighteenth-century French society• Candide (1759)• “Swift demonstrates the implications of ‘reason’ considered as

an ideal and shows its irrelevance to actual human behavior; Voltaire shows how the claim of a rational universal order avoids the hard problems of living in a world where human beings have become liars, traitors, and so on” (376)

Cultivation• Through reason you know God and yourself

• Reason is universal, so, too, moral laws are universal

• Voltaire trained by Jesuits, intellectual elite of Church

• Candide is new Adam, earnest, naïve

• Pangloss—a priori (based on theory)

• Martin—a posteriori (derived from facts)

• A priori and a posteriori reasoning

• Material facts versus abstract ideals (Machiavelli/Montaigne, Don Quixote’s world(s))

• True religion is a priori—in you, in meditation; you have everything you need

From Quixote to Candide• Satire vs. comedy (Swift: Voltaire)

• Tragedy, epic, history, philosophy, fiction

• Mocking fiction, its construction and constructedness

• From immediacy of experience to theoretical abstractions—work of Enlightenment philosophers?

• Ideal of reason vs. practical applications

• Creation and destruction

• Passivity vs. activity

• From conquest to “Of Cannibals” to questions of morality and ethics in Voltaire

• Indignation

• Role of the lover—loss of ideal

Philosophical Paradigms• “Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds”

(375)

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German philospher): philosophical optimism, belief in “unknowable universal order—roughly equivalent to Christian Providence—but no lack of awareness about the actual misery and depravity that human beings experience” (375)

• Candide presents the world “as though no disaster could have permanent or ultimately destructive effects” as Voltaire ridicules “outmoded philosophical system with no particular relevance to us” (376) [“Then you never were raped? You never had your belly ripped open, as the philosopher Pangloss assured me?” “Oh yes, said the lovely Cunégonde, but one doesn’t always die of these two accidents” ( 387)]; “it’s a mania for saying things are well when one is in hell” (410)

• Philosophes saw churches as inciting the “fanaticism and intolerance that led to the horrors of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the wars of the Reformation” (Perry 425)

Optimism UnboundAfter losing gold and diamonds, Candide says, “We are destined,

in the end, for another universe. . . No doubt that is the one where everything is well. For in this one, it must be admitted, there is some reason to grieve over our physical and moral state.”

“All will be well. . . Surely it is the New World which is the best of all possible worlds.” (391)

Billing• Westphalia• Baron of Thunder-Ten-tronckh• Pangloss• Cunégonde• Bulgars and Abare• Jacques, Anabaptist• Grand Inquisitor• Don Issachar• Old Woman: story to “pass the time” (396)• Pope Urban the Tenth and Princess of Palestrina• Cacambo• Jesuits• Biglugs—as savage • Eldorado• Martin• Paquette, Brother Giroflée• Lord Pococurante (426-428)• Chapter 26: six strangers • Dervish• farmer

Ideologies• Lord Pococurante—“nothing can be done, nothing should be

done, or nothing matters” (376)

• Cause and effect

• Needs garden—cultivate own garden

• Philosophy of life and how to construct

• Return to Paradise—from Paradise Lost

• Ending is new garden—we must make it

• Utopia—possibility of new garden of new century

• Candide—knows what happiness is