1) Enlightenment 

• Humans are improvable, if not perfectible

• Franklin is known as the 1st self-made man

• Enlightenment term was made by Immanuel Kant

• “The Enlightenment is our awaking of our self-incurred (brought upon by ourselves) immaturity”

  • Said Immanuel Kant

• Issac Newton (1642-1727)

  • In 1687, Isaac Newton wrote Principia Matematica
  • Makes a claim about the universe, nature, and nature's laws
    • Experiments to discover this.
    • We can experiment with this on our own.
  • He was a Christian. He wasn’t trying to say that their religion was dumb.
  • Isaac Newton did not start Deism

• Deism

  • Religion of science. The belief there is a God
  • If p, then q
  • If there is a creation, then there is a Creator
    • They say they don’t see God at work every day, so they believe the Creator created the earth and then left it and it is their job to take care pf it
  • Paine says old Deism is the base of all religions
  • Modern Deism and Old Deism are not the same things
  • The Deism we are talking about is old Deism
  • There is a God
  • The creation is the religious text
  • People who disagree w/ deism called the deist: natural men
  • Meaning they worship the god of nature
  • This was meant as an insult
  • They believed that if they watched creation, they would learn their duties
  • Their duties are to care about the creation
  • They believed that God gave them reason and they need to use it.
  • Their duty is to care for the earth and humans

• Thomas Paine

  • was not a pleasant person
  • Was a pain
  • Very truthful
  • Said what he thought even if it was rude

Pre-Enlightenment-

Isaac Newton: (1642-1727)

• Principia Mathematica (1687)
  • Laws of Motion
• His ideas of using science is pre-enlightenment and influenced it
• Our idea of science is our own, not a deity

Thomas Hobbes: (1588-1679

• Levithan (1651)
  • If the people ended up without a monarch then they would become anarchy, so we need a Levithan monarch
• Good - is what I want
• Bad - is what I don’t want
• We all desire selfish things
• “We will be at war all against all”
  • So to prevent that people need to give up some authority to another person that they choose and that person becomes an absolute monarch

Enlightenment-

John Locke: (1632-1704)

• Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
• Thought the idea of an absolute monarch is dumb
• Life, Liberty, and property - Natural Rights
  • We all have the right to live, be free, and ownership
• Tabula Rasa (blank slate)
  • Our brains are like a blank slate and our experiences influence us
  • We are neither good nor bad when we are born
• Empiricism - our experiences dictate who we are

1) We all have the capacity for our own sense of government

• Two-way contract
  • Both sides come to an agreement as to what their roles are (in government) and if you break it, it is a violation of the contract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

• Doesn’t like Hobbes’s ideas
• “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”
  • We are born free, but society puts restrictions on you
  • Unnatural Restrictions - Restrictions based on and reduced on by society
  • Naturally good
• “The only way we are free is in an absolute/direct democracy”
  • Everyone gets an equal vote
• Discourse on Inequiality (1754)

Thomas Paine:

• Rationalism - all knowledge comes through reasoning
• Religion of Deism
  • Deism
  • Belief that there is a God
  • If creation, then creator
  • Obligation to care for the world & to care for people
    • Their form of worship
  • Using God-given gift of reasoning
  • Improvement/progress
• Common Sense (1776)
  • Revolting against Britain
  • Becoming our own country
• The American Crisis (1776-1783)
  • About the American Revolution
• The Age of Reason (1794, 1795, 1807)
  • Rationalism
  • a prior : before experiences

Adam Smith:

• Capitalism:
  • Reward thoses who have money (modern-day)
  • Adam Smith invisioned that we would compete and improve each other
  • If we compete, we will improve
  • We would have naturnal sympathy