Introduction to the Enlightenment

1. Introduction to the Enlightenment ENGL 3363.P1 C. Gazzara Derived from http://marhabib.org/intros/enlightenment.html

2. Redefinitions… • Broad intellectual tendency • Spans philosophy, literature, language, art, religion and political theory • Lasts from around 1680 until the end of the eighteenth century • Somewhat reductive affiliation to “the age of reason” • Thinkers not uniform in their outlooks • Humanitarian, intellectual and social progress • Increase in human reason to subjugate analytically both the external world of nature and the human self • Rid human thought and institutions of irrational prejudice and superstition • Foster a society free of feudal caprice, political absolutism and religious intolerance • Moral and political choices best made on the foundations of rationality and freedom • Political economy: Enlightenment thought  rise of liberalism/bourgeois class power • Reason as a byproduct of economics, particularly banking/investment/trade and manufacture • Profound implications for the status of science and technology.

3. Reverberations… • Still a profound effect on our world • Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and his influence • A Mechanical Universe over Divine Providence • Reason as counter to old traditions of thought/institutional practice • But reliance on reason was in itself nothing new: • (Plato/Aristotle) • Mediaeval Christian philosophy (balanced by faith and revelation) • Hence, the CONSTRAINTS of reasonlimitations within a broader pattern of human faculties • Enlightenment  reason  knowledge  potentially limitless • Reason no longer presuppose faith/divine revelation • Man over Church/State/tradition/convention/powerful individual/s • Still evident in modern democracies even today: e.g., Alexis de Tocqueville

4. Locke • John Locke (1632-1704) • An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises on Civil Government (1690) • The mind has no "innate ideas” • Tabula rasa, or blank slate, on which we experience • Ideas from experience (sensatsion/reflection) • Senses dictate distinct ideas of objects ion external world (yellow, white, hard, cold or soft) • Reflection dictates internal operation of our own minds (perception, thinking, doubting, reasoning and believing) • Sensations + Reflections = "the fountains of knowledge" • No other source of knowledge or ideas • Insistence on clear and distinct ideas • Blames the misuse or abuse of language

5. In groups… prepare informal answers to any two of the following… • DISCUSSION QUESTIONS— • What suggestions does Locke give to the reader of his Essay? What does he hope the reader will take away from the reading? • How did the Essay originate? How did it evolve? What do the conditions for writing the essay tell us about its content? • Whom does he exclude from his intended audience for the Essay and why? • What does he hope to contribute to the “commonwealth” of learning? • What is a determinate idea? What is a determined idea? How will an understanding of such ideas in appropriate language end many disputes? • How are Locke’s ideas in this excerpt “radical,” “individualistic,” or threatening? • --be prepared to discuss when I announce; nothing to be collected