Class qs Unit 5

  • Immanuel Kant said: “Dare to know”

  • If you dont dare to know, you are just going to have to accept 

  • Late 17th and 18th century

    • Cultural movement of intellectuals

  • Renaissance > Scientific Revolution > Enlightenment

  • 1350-1600 > 1600s > 1700s

These Ideas came from Philosophes

  • Many were French; not all

  • Many professions 

  • Nobility, middle class, some lower

  • Common rejection of Chirstianty 

  • Desire to change the world (progressively radical)

  • Tremendous influence on future political thought 

  • Key ideas: 

    • Reason

    • Nature and Natural Laws

    • Happiness

Patrons

  • Monarchs (Cathernine etc.)


“Republic of Letters”

  • International community of writers

  • Communicated in French 


Nautral Laws were a large part of the Enlightenment


Issac Newton 

Principa (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy)

  • Mathematical proofs re: universal law of gravitation 

  • Universe a huge, regulated, uniform machine with natural laws

    • (World machine)


John Locke - All Men have natural rights when they are born; Talked about slates 

  1. Two Treatises on Government  

    1. Man born free; govermemtn useful to organize

    2. Social contract with state, but state still has rights

      1. Agreement between ruler & governed 

      2. Natural rights: Life, liberty, property

  2. Letter concerning toleration

    1. Chrisitianty should not be spread by force

  3. Essay on Human Understanding

    1. Tabula Rasa – knowledge empirical from exp. 


Thomas Hobbes 

  1. Need for Absolute Monarchs; The Leviathan

  2. Life without government was “nasty, brutish, and short”

  3. States - - necessary constructs to restrain 

    1. Human urges as well


Voltaire - Ecrasez l’inframe! 

Giant of the Enlightenment 

  • Relgious tolerance and Freedom of Speech 

  • Opposed superstition and ignorance 

  • “I may not agree with a word u say, but I will defend to death your right to say it”

  • Deist - God created Universe; allowed to operate under the laws of science 


Montesquieu 

  • Spirit of Laws (Natural laws of social experiences)

  • Separation of Power; checks and balances



Jean Jaques Rousseau 

  • More radcial (Direct Democracy)

  • Wrote a novel “Emile”

    • Children are naturally good

    • Induvidualized expertianal education

  • The Social Contract

    • Not reason alone; General will of populace as well

    • Hobbes and Locke; Social contract w/ruler

    • Rosseau; Social contract with each other 

  • Distrusted reason and science; more emotional 


Dierdot

  • Encyclopedia

    • Organize knowledge; scientific manner

    • 28 volumes philosophes' articles

  • Strait of Gibraltar is in between Europe and Africa from the Ibreian peninsula

  • Pillars of hercules represnrt Herculues holding both parts of the world together; in Strait of Gibraltar

  • Christopher Columbus who represented Spain, was the first to cross the Starit and proved that there was land past these waters

  • Relgion, the Church, and Sceince were intertwiened with each other as usually Priests were the edcuated elites who studied proto-sciences (Pre-modern)

Medieval Ages

  • Benedictines became world class agriculturists; boosted European economy

  • Dominicans were philiospiphers

  • Jesuits were Doctors and Lawyers

  • Pierre Abelard and Heloise 

    • Love life and founded the 2nd oldest university in France

  • Hildegard Von Begin

    • Known as the woman Da Vinci 

    • Astrolabe and drawing of the human body/anatomy

Shift toward Scientific Revolution

  • Credit usually begins with Galileo Galilei; making his deductions from Kepler before him


New Thoughts during Scientific Revolution

  • Renaissance “re-birth” of thinking and humanist studies

  • Heliocentric view vs. Geocentric view

    • Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543)

      • Earth Revolves around the sun, center of the universe 

Scientific Method

  • Sir Frances Bacon and Rene Decarte came up with it

Pre-Romanov Rulers 

  • Ivan III (the Great) 

  • Ivan IV (the terrible) 

    • Known for strategic use of opression: Oprinchinki 

  • Mainly like kings, did not do much to the economy of Russia and just led normally

  • They stayed agricultural and fuedal for hundreds of years after Western Europe

  • Cossacks were master horsemen who were charged with colonizing Russian and Ukranian steppe

  • Russia was anarchic during time of troubles with no leaders

  • St. Petersburg was called the Venice of Russia

  • After Peter the Great came Peter III who was mentally unstable, but married Catherine the Great from Germany who led Russia

Western head of the eagle looks toward European culture; in the east head looking towards Slavic culture and Mongolian turckic culture