"Man is born free but everywhere is in chains."

1. "Man is born free but everywhere is in chains." Deism Tolerance Progress “Dare to Know” Cogito, ergo sum “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him”

2. The Eighteenth Century: An Age of Enlightenment

3. The Enlightenment • New ideas about the human potential for progress.

4. Grew in part out of the Scientific Revolution Sir Isaac Newton 1702

5. Became one of the foundations of the American and French Revolutions.

6. Appealed primarily to middle and upper classes, particularly in urban areas.

7. Key Ideas of the Enlightenment • Scientific laws should be used to understand the world.

8. Laws of human society and the physical world could bediscerned through the scientific method • Humanity could progress.

9. Immanuel Kant • The German philosopher Immanuel Kant proclaimed the motto of the Enlightenment to be: “Dare to Know!”

10. The Popularization of Science

11. Bernard de Fontenelle • The scientist-philosopher Bernard de Fontenelle provides a link between the scientists of the 17th century and the philosophes of the Eighteenth century.

12. The works of Fontenelle announced the Enlightenment by encouraging amateur conversations about scientific matters.

13. He popularized the growing skepticism toward the claims of religion and portrayed churches as clear enemies of scientific progress.

14. Fontenelle was best known for his Plurality of Worlds, which popularized the new ideas of a mechanistic universe and clearly showed a woman’s interest in scientific discourse.

15. The Rise of Skepticism • Questioning the Church’s dogma concerning the physical world led to skepticism regarding all aspects of Church authority.

16. Pierre Bayle • Pierre Bayle exemplified the new skepticism about religious explanations of anything.

17. Bayle's Historical and Critical Dictionary is a work demonstrating the author's conviction that new rational principles of textual criticism should be applied to all types of writing including the Bible.

18. The Impact of Travel Literature • A key new type of enlightened writing fueling skepticism about the "truths" of Christianity and European society were travel reports and comparative studies of old and new world cultures.

19. What had been seen as practices grounded in reason were seen to be matters of custom and traditions. • Cultural Relativism was accompanied by religious skepticism.

20. The Legacy of Newton and Locke

21. Isaac Newton and John Locke provided inspiration for the Enlightenment by arguing that through rational reasoning and the acquisition of knowledge natural laws governing human society could be discovered.

22. John Locke (1632-1704) • English philosopher, who founded the school of empiricism. • Locke gave Bacon’s empiricism systematic expression in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).

23. Locke's empiricism emphasizes the importance of the experience of the senses in pursuit of knowledge rather than intuitive speculation or deduction.

24. "No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience."(Locke.) • He regarded the mind of a person at birth as a tabula rasa, a blank slate upon which experience imprinted knowledge, and did not believe in intuition or theories of innate conceptions.

25. Locke also held that all persons are born good, independent, and equal.

26. Locke’s Political Theories • He argued that government should be based on the consent of the governed.

27. There was a contract between governments and the governed.

28. The Philosophes • Philosophers who questioned the human condition.

29. They saw themselves as the heir to the philosophers of antiquity and the Renaissance Humanists.

30. They advocated reform through the acquisition of knowledge by scientific methods.

31. They believed in the perfection of human institutions through reason.

32. The French philosophes included people mainly from the nobility and the middle class. Jean Huber La Sainte Cène du Patriarche (c.1772)

33. Paris • The recognized capital of the Enlightenment was Paris, but the movement was international.

34. Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) • Charles Louis de Secondat was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1689 to a wealthy family.

35. He was a member of the Bordeaux and French Academies of Science and studied the laws and customs and governments of the countries of Europe.

36. He gained fame in 1721 with his Persian Letters, which criticized the lifestyle and liberties of the wealthy French as well as the church.

37. L’Esprit des Loix • Montesquieu's book On the Spirit of Laws, published in 1748, was his most famous work. • It outlined his ideas on how government would work best.

38. Montesquieu believed that a government that was elected by the people was the best form of government, but that geography and environment determine the form.

39. Montesquieu argued that the best government would be one in which power was balanced among three groups of officials.

40. He thought England - which divided power between the king (who enforced laws), Parliament (which made laws), and the judges of the English courts (who interpreted laws) - was a good model of this.

41. Montesquieu called the idea of dividing government power into three branches the "separation of powers."

42. He thought it most important to create separate branches of government with equal but different powers.

43. Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu • "When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty."

44. His ideas about separation of powers became the basis for the United States Constitution.

45. Voltaire (1694-1778) • Voltaire was born François Marie Arouet in Paris, November 21, 1694, the son of a notary. • He was educated by the Jesuits at the College Louis-le-Grand.

46. Voltaire chose literature as a career. • He began moving in aristocratic circles and soon became known in Paris salons as a brilliant and sarcastic wit.

47. A number of his writings resulted in his imprisonment in the Bastille. • While in prison he began writing plays, which were widely acclaimed.

48. A quarrel with a member of an illustrious French family, the chevalier de Rohan, resulted in Voltaire's promise to quit France and proceed to England. • Accordingly he spent about two years in London.

49. In Voltaire's Philosophic Letters to the English he expressed deep admiration for the English love of freedom, tolerance, and commercial excellence.

50. He spent time at the the court of Louis XV and became a member of the French Academy. • After a brief sojourn at the Prussian court he settled at Ferney near the Swiss border and devoted the rest of his life to writing.