The Enlightenment Chapter 9

Age of Reason

Monday 11/21/11Enlightenment: Ch.9

RAP

1. In what ways have computers and the information superhighway created new possibilities for political activity?

2. How does your knowledge about the transmission of diseases affect your behavior?

Age of Revolution: chapter 9; pgs. 286-306

The discoveries and writings of the Age of Revolution ignited a fuse of knowledge that exploded in a scientific revolution so complete and far-reaching that the years from 1500 to 1830 are often called “the beginning of the modern age.”

AGE OF REVOLUTION

Every time you have your temperature taken with a mercury thermometer, receive medication through a fine-needled syringe, let a doctor listen to your heartbeat through a stethoscope, or have your tooth drilled by a dentist, you are seeing instruments invented during the Age of Revolution. Also, microscopes and telescopes were developed during this time. Even the simple multiplication symbol X was proposed during this age of scientific revolution.

Spread of Ideas

Open your textbook to page 288 Read and look at the pictures on pages

288 & 289.

A World of Progress and Reason

A World of progress and reason grew out of the Scientific Revolution

Use reason to discover natural laws - Laws that govern human nature

The use of reason could solve social, political and economic problems

Title your notes: Enlightenment Ideas

New Scientific Ideas Pgs. 292-296 Read pages 292-296 and take notes on following

individuals and their accomplishments. Nicolaus Copernicus Johannes Kepler Galileo Galilei Francis Bacon Rene Descartes Isaac Newton

Be able to explain how new ideas (scientific Method, Newton’s Laws) changed the ways people understood the world.

VocabularyPolitical Ideas

As scientists made revolutionary discoveries about people, nature, and the universe, popular interest in science spread throughout Europe.

Natural Law- a universal moral law that, like physical laws, could be understood by applying reason.

The Social Contract

An agreement that people enter to give up a state of nature for an organized society

Philosophers disagreed about what kind of government is best

Pacifism, or opposition to violence as a means of settling disputes.

laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies. French-leave it alone.

metaphysics-branch of philosophy that deals with spiritual issues.

Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679 (pg.297 &

299 text)

The Leviathan-book about how people would be without government.

People are naturally cruel, greedy, selfish

Need to be strictly controlled An absolute monarchy was

needed People should form a social

contract, an agreement to give up their freedom and live obediently under a ruler.

John Locke 1632-1704 (page 297 text)

Two Treatises on Government-people created government to protect natural rights.

People were basically reasonable & moral

Natural rights – life, liberty, property

Governments were formed to protect those rights

Limited government is the best kind Thomas Jefferson based much of

the Declaration of Independence on Locke’s ideas.

WILLIAM PENN 1600’S (PG. 299 TEXT)

Founder of the Quaker Colony in the American colonies.

Believed in Pacifism Advocated an assembly

of nations committed to world peace.

Baron de Montesquieu 1689-1775

The Spirit of the Laws Admired limited

monarchy of England Separation of powers

– protect liberties Three branches

Legislative Executive Judicial

Checks and balances

Adam Smith Adam Smith was a Scottish political

economist and philosopher The Wealth of Nations (1776). Adam Smith first used the metaphor of

an “invisible hand" in his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments to describe the unintentional effects of economic self organization from economic self interest.

laid the framework that explained the free market and still holds true today

Voltaire 1694-1778

French philosopher and deist (denounced organized religion)

Defended freedom of speech Used wit and sarcasm to

expose abuses – offensive to Church and state

“I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.”

Women and the Enlightenment

Ideas about equality and freedom spread throughout Europe.

Women’s rights were limited to the home and family.

By 1700, a small number of women began to affirm women’s equality with men- A Vindication of the Rights of Women-British author Mary Wollstonecraft favored equal education for women and men so both could contribute to society.

Opponents of EnlightenmentJean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778

The Social Contract Believed people should

rely more on instinct and emotion, than on reason.

People basically good Society corrupts Individuals give up self-

interest for the common good

Government based on consent of governed

Emanuel Kant German Believed that reason could not

answer the problems of metaphysics

Asserted that reality consisted of separate physical and spiritual worlds and that the methods for knowing varied greatly.

Physical world -knowledge came through the senses and reasons.

Spiritual world-knowledge came through faith and intuition.

Ideas and feelings about religion, morality, and beauty were true even though reason and science could not explain them.

Enlightened despots

Absolute rulers who used their power to bring about political

and social change

Frederick the Great

King of Prussia (1740-1786)

“servant of the state” Admired Voltaire Improved agriculture Tolerant of religions Tried to make

government efficient

Catherine the Great Empress of Russia in 1762 Reforms in law and

government Spoke out against serfdom,

but did allow nobles to treat serfs as they chose.

Rebellions and uprisings were brutally crushed.

Successful foreign policy-expanding borders and securing a warm water port on the Black Sea.

Last of the great absolute monarchs.

Joseph II (1741-1790)

Hapsburg emperor of Austria

“peasant emperor” Chose talented men

to run government Ended censorship Tolerated religions Built hospitals Abolished serfdom

Reactions by the people

Voltaire, Montesquieu, women, and some leaders supported the enlightenment ideas.

Art, music, and literature were influenced by the enlightenment ideas.

Opponents of enlightenment ideas were Rousseau, Kant, and some ordinary men and women also felt something was lacking in the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason.

Closure: write on scrap paperTurn in when complete.

1. Which people of the enlightenment influenced the United States?

2. Explain how new ideas (scientific Method, Newton’s Laws) changed the ways people understood the world.

3. Explain how Enlightenment ideas influenced political thought and social change-deism, role of women, political thought, social changes.