What is Enlightenment?

1. What is Enlightenment? Dr. Stuart Middleton October 2019

2. A basic definition of ‘enlightenment’ • Distinctive enlightenment ideas • The diversity of the enlightenment • Enlightenment and revolution

3. A basic definition of ‘enlightenment’ • A sect (or group of thinkers) • A disposition (or way of thinking)

4. A basic definition of ‘enlightenment’ Enlightenment as ‘sect’ – the philosophes Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu, 1689-1755 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), 1694-1798 Denis Diderot, 1713-1784 Jean-Baptiste le Rondd’Alembert, 1717-1783 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778 Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, 1714-1780 Claude Adrien Helvétius, 1715-1771 Baron d’Holbach, 1723-1789 Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, 1749-1791 François Quesnay, 1694-1774 Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l’Aulne, 1727-1781 Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, 1743-1794

5. A basic definition of ‘enlightenment’ Enlightenment as ‘sect’ Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804 Critique of Pure Reason (1781) Critique of Practical Reason (1788) Critique of the Power of Judgement (1790)

6. A basic definition of ‘enlightenment’ Enlightenment as a way of thinking A movement of ideas in Europe and North America during the eighteenth century which self-consciously broke with the assumptions that had governed intellectual and political life over the previous six centuries, creating a radically new understanding of humanity and its place in the universe. Clarifications: • ‘Eighteenth century’ in this sense generally the ‘long eighteenth century’, c.1650/ 1680 – 1789 or c.1800 • Historians now extend the boundaries of ‘enlightenment’ beyond Europe to America and the wider ‘Atlantic world’

7. A basic definition of ‘enlightenment’ Reaction against ‘scholasticism’ Scholasticism: • Primacy of theology • Textual interpretation of a tightly-constrained canon Pre-enlightenment reactions against scholasticism: • Biblical humanists • Reformation and Wars of Religion • ‘Scientific Revolution’ • New theories of natural law: Grotius, Hobbes, Locke

8. A basic definition of ‘enlightenment’ • Distinctive ‘enlightenment’ ideas • The diversity of the enlightenment • Enlightenment and revolution

9. Distinctive enlightenment ideas The image of light and ‘enlightenment’ ‘There is a mighty Light which spreads itself over the world especially in those two free Nations of England and Holland; on whom the Affairs of Europe now turn; and if Heaven sends us soon a peace suitable to the great Successes we have had, it is impossible but Letters and Knowledge must advance in greater Proportion than ever.’ Earl of Shaftesbury (1703) ‘An almost entirely new philosophical spirit, a light which had hardly enlightened our ancestors’ Bernard de Fontanelle ‘Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is man’s inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. […]. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapereaude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!”’ Immanuel Kant, ‘What is Enlightenment?’ (1784)

10. Distinctive enlightenment ideas Enlightenment theories of knowledge Rejection of the idea that knowledge was prescribed or validated by an external authority; hostility to dogma; scepticism & eclecticism Diderot: ‘the philosopher who trampled under foot prejudice, tradition, antiquity, universal agreement, authority – in a word everything which subjugates the mass of minds’ Not just an ‘age of reason’ – more accurately, an age of reason and experiment (‘Éclectisme’, Encyclopédie)

11. Distinctive enlightenment ideas Enlightenment understandings of human nature Partial reaction against seventeenth-century criticisms of scholastic human nature, stressing sociability: Pufendorf, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson David Hume: ‘No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathise with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to, our own’ ‘Of National Characters’ (1748) Human nature not divinely-ordained; universal (in principle); and malleable

12. Distinctive enlightenment ideas Enlightenment and religion Hostility to religion among some enlightenment thinkers: ‘Religion has ever filled the mind of man with darkness, and kept him in ignorance of his real duties and true interests. It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of Religion, that we shall discover Truth, Reason, and Morality.’ Baron d’Holbach … but also a much wider range of more moderate views, including arguments for toleration; natural morality; deism and theism ‘Theism is embraced by the flower of humankind, by which I mean decent people from Peking to London, and from London to Philadelphia.’ Voltaire, Histoire de l’établissement du christianisme Recent scholarship emphasises the compatibility of enlightenment with religion, even its religious origins

13. Distinctive enlightenment ideas Enlightenment and political authority C17 contractual theories of government (Hobbes, Locke) – sovereign power not divinely-ordained or -sanctioned, but originates in an agreement among people  purpose of government to promote the security and material well-being of subjects (or the ‘common good’) Even espoused by some sovereigns themselves: e.g. Frederick the Great’s self-description as ‘the first servant of the state’ ‘[A]s force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.’ David Hume, ‘Of the First Principles of Government’ (1741)

14. Distinctive enlightenment ideas Enlightenment and political authority Frederick and Voltaire in Sans-Souci, Potsdam

15. Distinctive enlightenment ideas Enlightenment and the public Expansion of print culture during eighteenth century: • increasing scale of publishing • apparent increase in literacy rates (tho evidence is incomplete) • partial (although uneven) relaxation of censorship • emergence of ‘the public’ as political force and arbiter of opinion

16. Distinctive enlightenment ideas Enlightenment and the public ‘I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-Tables, and in Coffee Houses’. Joseph Addison, The Spectator A café at the Palais-Royal, Paris Addison in Button’s Coffee House, London

17. Distinctive enlightenment ideas The enlightenment ‘science of man’ (i) • Enlightenment situates humanity at the centre of the world of knowledge – thus ‘the science of man’ (Hume): the study of human nature in time • Some key texts: • Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1740) • Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748) – comparative study of political systems, situated within a total understanding of natural and social forces • Voltaire, Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations (1756) – quasi-universal study of customs and the development of civilisations • Historical emphasis of enlightenment thought stadial* theories of civilizational development • Montesquieu – three stages (savage, barbarian, civilized) • Scottish enlightenment thinkers develop ‘four-stage theory’ based on mode of subsistence • Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1795) – ten stages, the last of which lay in the future *stadial – in stages

18. Distinctive enlightenment ideas The enlightenment ‘science of man’ (ii) • Unity of knowledge: ‘science of man’ draws on literature, natural history, philosophy, etc. • Exemplified by the Encyclopédie, edited by D’Alembert & Diderot, published in Paris from 1751 • ‘Tree of Knowledge’ figure from the first volume (right) – knowledge categorised in relation to human faculties: Memory, Reason, Imagination) • But situating all knowledge and cultures within a single framework – a form of universalism, in tension with relativistic impulses of enlightenment?

19. Distinctive enlightenment ideas Commerce, luxury and political economy C18 meaning of ‘commerce’ - intercourse or exchange of any kind Epitomises compound of self-interest and sociability at the heart of enlightenment conceptions of human nature Voltaire’s impression of the London Stock Exchange: ‘[T]here you will find gathered together representatives of all nations for the utility of mankind. The Jew, the Muslim and Christian treat each other as if they belonged to the same religion, and reserve the term “infidel” for bankrupts.’ Voltaire, LettresPhilosophiques (1733) Enlightenment debates about luxury: handmaid of economic progress, or the enemy of public morality? Political economy – a distinctive form of knowledge of commercial activity, contra treatment of economic policy as preserve of ministers and the crown

20. Distinctive enlightenment ideas Exploration of the world • Pre-enlightenment engagement with the ‘New World’ and early articulations of cultural relativism • Enlightenment criticism of European societies from non-European standpoint – e.g. Montesquieu, Persian Letters (1721) • Scientific voyages which also studied the ‘morals’ and manners of non-European peoples – e.g. Bougainville and Cook in Tahiti • How does John Webber’s portrait of Princess Poedua (right) exemplify the tensions and contradictions of enlightenment ideas? What do we see when we look at this image now? John Webber, ‘Princess Poedua’ (1777)

21. A basic definition of ‘enlightenment’ • Distinctive ‘enlightenment’ ideas • The diversity of the enlightenment • Enlightenment and revolution

22. Diversity of enlightenment Diversity of ‘enlightenment’ Is it possible to give a single, conclusive answer to the question ‘what is enlightenment?’? Historians now recognise much more diversity within what used to be more confidently called ‘the Enlightenment’, including: • Religion – spanning atheism, deism, and enlightenment ideas & attitudes within the church • Distinction between ‘radical’ and ‘moderate’ enlightenments • Recognition of distinctive ‘national’ enlightenments, rather than a unitary and cohesive movement • ‘enlightenments’ (plural), rather than ‘the Enlightenment’? • widely-adopted distinction between ‘early’ and ‘late’ enlightenments (in various senses)

23. A basic definition of ‘enlightenment’ • Distinctive ‘enlightenment’ ideas • The diversity of the enlightenment • Enlightenment and revolution

24. Enlightenment and revolution Voltaire’s interment in the Panthéon, 1791

25. Enlightenment and revolution Enlightenment and revolution • Allegorical of the Revolution by Nicolas Henry Jeaurat de Bertry (1794), depicting Rousseau as its tutelary spirit • But philosophes had a much more complex relationship with the ancien regime • Not all supported the revolution – and some fell victim to it • Does revolution accord with the measured, stadial schemes of development that characterised enlightenment?