The Enlightenment (cont’d)

1. The Enlightenment (cont’d)

2. Debates on Women Ambivalent situation (women’s role in salons, as organizers of charities, the fame of some female novelists) Anatomical studies influenced the image of women: traditional view of female anatomy ( as an inverted botched equivalent of male’s reproductive anatomy) replaced by the new image: female & male body - as entirely different  women’s anatomy points to their unique role as mothers But: Comparisons of male & female sculls  women’s intellectual Inferiority

3. Debates on women (cont’d) The cult of domesticity (later 18th century onward in Britain, product of bourgeois society) women’s role as homemakers & loving companions for their husbands  education that stressed nurturing skills and obedience (not intellectual development) Jean Jacque Rousseau, Emile, 1760 – educating girls for their role as wives.

4. Debates on women: women’s response Mary Astell, Some Reflections on Marriage, 1700. “If absolute authority be not necessary in a state, how come it be so in a family …? If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?” Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Right of Woman, 1792: against gendered approach to education, demands for equality in education, economic & political life

5. The Enlightened philanthropy: London’s Magdalene Hospital, 1758 – for re-education of prostitutes John Lettisom (son of a wealthy plantation owner) – fashionable physician in London. Set free his slaves in 1767. Founded: 1770 - General Dispensary (free pharmacy for the poor ) Humane Society to pioneer techniques of resuscitating the drowned, 1791 Royal Sea Bathing Infirmary, 1791- a convalescent home for the tubercular.

6. The issue of poverty. Ambivalent attitude. In England - each parish is responsible for its “deserving poor” (1700 –£ 600,000, 1803 - £ 4,2 million – too burdening for tax-payers). In other countries – a matter of private charity. Cost of living in cities – crowds of beggars Christian ethics vs. individualist thinking (debates: does the system of poor relief remove the incentive to work?). Workhouses in the 18th cent – an attempt to find a solution (harsh discipline)

7. The idea of Progress in the Enlightenment causes: • Advances in science & medicine • Modern comforts & conveniences • The idea that humans, nature & society are improvable Belief in history as a progressive unfolding of events (the birth of science fiction & futurological novel in the 18th century) • Possibility of remodelling society along more progressive lines (towards greater social & economic justice) Condorcet, Progress of the Human Mind, 1793

8. Pessimistic voices: Towards the end of the 18th century – concerns about population growth (previously economists greeted population increase as a sign of prosperity) Thomas Malthus, An Essay of the Principle of Populations, 1798: Food supply grows arithmetically: 2,4,6,.., while population increases geometrically: 2, 4, 16,… Wars, epidemics, natural calamities check population growth in a ‘natural’ way but increasing life expectancy & fertility rate offset these checks. Solution: the poor must practise abstinence and control the size of their families.

9. The fate of the Enlightenment thought in the 19th century: For conservatives – the Enlightenment as a source of dangerous ideas leading towards revolutions For Liberals – the source of inspiration; liberal philosophy was rooted in the enlightened ideals of individual freedom, equality of people as human beings & popular sovereignty (the power ultimately resides in people) (originally- Locke’s idea)