The Age of Enlightenment

The Triumph of Reason

The Age of Reason Two major themes in the Western Experience

are defined by intellectual and religious life The Scientific Revolution and the Age of

Reason that it brought caused a sharp break in both themes

Not since pagan times had religion been so directly challenged

Philosohes became the spokesmen of the educated elite in 18th century society

The Enlightenment 17th century science, religious skepticism, and

appreciation of classical culture led to 18th century intellectuals with a new spirit

They popularized science by applying the scientific method to other disciplines

Natural History became popular Combo of geology, zoology, botany G.L. Buffon- Natural History of the Earth

Ignored Creationism but his theories were at odds with it

Moving Past Christianity Biblical Authority was shot Liberal theologians tried to remove

superstition from religion Devil became moral evil instead of a red

guy with horns and a pitchfork This helped some intellectuals maintain

their faith but for the most part it weakened the authority of the church

Christian ethics called into question Could people of other faiths live moral

lives?

Deism Voltaire- religion’s worst enemy

“Every sensible man, every honorable man must hold [Christianity] in horror”

He hoped that educated men would abandon Christianity for Deism

God was like a clockmaker Man lives on its own in a divinely

ordered world Some philosophes went beyond deism

into philosophical atheism

The Philosophes French thinkers that ralied around science and

secularism Shared a critical spirit where all assumptions must

stand the tests of reason, experience, and utility Invoked the spirit of classical paganism Referrred to the middle ages as “the dark ages”

Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire declared that the church had stopped the Roman world from achieving a life of reason instead of myth

Philosophes, like the humanists before them, put man at the center of their thought

Some Thinkers to Think About Montesquieu- expanded Cartesian thought to natural law and

claimed that like the physical, political phenomena were also subject to natural law

Marquis de Condorcet- universally valid truths in ethics, economics, and government like science and math

Adam Smith- The Wealth of Nations- sought natural law as the universally binding force behind political affairs and promoted capitalism

David Hume- expanded Locke’s theories and his main concern was causality. If A always follows B can we conclude that B causes A? NO

Immanuel Kant- proposed a complete philosophical approach- we can have reliable knowledge but true knowledge cannot transcend experience Categorical imperative: “act only according to the maxim which you

at the time will to be a universal law.” Denis Diderot- wrote a 35 volume encyclopedia which was the

largest compendium of contemporary social, philosophic, artistic, scientific and technological knowledge ever produced in the west

The end of “baroqueness”

Rococo- tail end of the baroque period which found pleasure in a refined, elegant style “From the ponderous baroque to the

delicate and playful rococo” The movement was based on leisure

with a feeling of classicism The birth of the orchestra

Rococo Painting- Watteau’s Departure from the Island of Cythera- The pursuit of pleasure

Rococo Architecture-Fischer’s Benedictine Abbey at Ottobeuren, Bavaria- walls disappear behind “frosting”

Rococo Sculpture- Clodion’s Intoxication of Wine- Dionysus

Rococo Music- a challenge to Bach and Handel- dropped the dense textures for light graceful melodies in short distinct phrases

Compare Handel’s Messiah Bach’s

Art of the Fugue Haydn’s Surprise

Handel’s Messiah

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Art of the Fugue

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Surprise

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