The Enlightenment

The Age of Reason

The Neo-Classical Era
(1660-1788)

- This period goes by the names "the Enlightenment,"

"the Age of Reason," and "the Neo-Classical Age."
- There was a great turning away from religion as primary
way of life.

An intellectual movement in the eighteenth century that emphasized reason

and science

The Enlightenment – the great ‘Age of Reason’ – is defined as the period of

rigorous scientific, political and philosophical discourse that characterised

European society during the ‘long’ 18th century: from the late 17th century to

the ending of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.

 This was a period of huge change in thought and reason.

 The Age of Reason, was an intellectual and cultural movement

in the eighteenth century that emphasized reason over

superstition and science over blind faith.

Using the power of the press, Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Isaac

Newton, and Voltaire questioned accepted knowledge and spread new ideas

about openness, investigation, and religious tolerance throughout Europe and

the Americas.

Many consider the Enlightenment a major turning point in Western

civilization, an age of light replacing an age of darkness.

Centuries of custom and tradition were brushed aside in favour of

exploration, individualism, tolerance and scientific endeavour, which,

in tandem with developments in industry and politics, witnessed the

emergence of the ‘modern world’.

The emergence of ‘reason’

The roots of the Enlightenment can be found in the turmoil of the English Civil

Wars. With the re-establishment of a largely unchanged autocratic monarchy,

first with the restoration of Charles II in 1660 and then the ascendancy of James

II in 1685, leading political thinkers began to reappraise how society and

politics could (and should) be better structured.

 Movements for political change resulted in the Glorious

Revolution of 1688/89, when William and Mary were installed

on the throne as part of the new Protestant settlement.

Centered on the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and

legitimacy, this movement advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance,

fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.

There is little consensus on the precise beginning of the Age of

Enlightenment, but the beginning of the 18th century (1701) or the middle

of the 17th century (1650) are commonly identified as starting points.

 French historians usually place the period between 1715 and

1789. Most scholars use the last years of the century, often

choosing the French Revolution of 1789 or the beginning of the

Napoleonic Wars (1804–15) to date the end of the

Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment took hold in most European countries. The cultural exchange during the

Age of Enlightenment ran between particular European countries and also in both directions

across the Atlantic.

There were two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought.

1. The radical Enlightenment advocated democracy, individual liberty,

freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority.

 The radical enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of

Spinoza, advocated democracy, individual liberty, freedom of

expression, and eradication of religious authority.

2. A second, more moderate variety sought accommodation between

reform and the traditional systems of power and faith.

Supported by René Descartes, John Locke, Christian Wolff, Isaac

Newton and others, sought accommodation between reform and the

traditional systems of power and faith.

Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment

discourse and thought.

 The Enlightenment has long been hailed as the foundation of

modern Western political and intellectual culture.

 It brought political modernization to the West.

 In religion, Enlightenment era commentary was a response to

the preceding century of religious conflict in Europe.

Historians of race, gender, and class note that Enlightenment ideals

were not originally envisioned as universal in the today’s sense of the

word.
 Although they did eventually inspire the struggles for rights of

people of color, women, or the working masses, most Enlightenment

thinkers did not advocate equality for all, regardless of race, gender,

or class, but rather insisted that rights and freedoms were not

hereditary.

French

The eighteenth century Enlightenment is the loosely organized

activity of prominent French thinkers of the mid-decades of the

eighteenth century, the so-called “philosophes”(e.g., Voltaire,

D’Alembert, Diderot, Montesquieu).

The philosophes constituted an informal society of men of

letters who collaborated on a loosely defined project of Enlightenment

exemplified by the project of the Encyclopedia there are noteworthy

centers of Enlightenment outside of France as well.

There is a renowned Scottish Enlightenment (key figures

are Frances Hutcheson, Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Reid),

 German Enlightenment (die Aufklärung, key figures of which

include Christian Wolff, Moses Mendelssohn, G.E. Lessing and

Immanuel Kant), and there are also other hubs of Enlightenment and

Enlightenment thinkers scattered throughout Europe and America in

the eighteenth century.

D’Alembert, a leading figure of the French Enlightenment,

characterizes his eighteenth century, in the midst of it, as “the century

of philosophy par excellence”, because of the tremendous intellectual

and scientific progress of the age, but also because of the expectation

of the age that philosophy (in the broad sense of the time, which

includes the natural and social sciences) would dramatically improve

human life.

Guided by D’Alembert’s characterization of his century, the Enlightenment is

conceived here as having its primary origin in the scientific revolution of the
16th and 17th centuries.

The rise of the new science progressively undermines not only the ancient
geocentric conception of the cosmos, but also the set of presuppositions that had
served to constrain and guide philosophical inquiry in the earlier times.
The dramatic success of the new science in explaining the natural world promotes philosophy
from a handmaiden of theology, constrained by its purposes and methods, to an independent
force with the power and authority to challenge the old and construct the new, in the realms
both of theory and practice, on the basis of its own principles.
Taking as the core of the Enlightenment the aspiration for intellectual progress, and the belief
in the power of such progress to improve human society and individual lives, this entry
includes descriptions of relevant aspects of the thought of earlier thinkers, such as Hobbes,
Locke, Descartes, Bayle, Leibniz, and Spinoza, thinkers whose contributions are
indispensable to understanding the eighteenth century as “the century of philosophy par
excellence”.

Many commentators of the late 17th century were eager to achieve a

clean break from what they saw as centuries of political tyranny, in
favour of personal freedoms and happiness centred on the individual.
Chief among these thinkers was philosopher and physician John
Locke, whose Two Treatises of Government (published in 1689)
advocated a separation of church and state, religious toleration, the
right to property ownership and a contractual obligation on
governments to recognise the innate ‘rights’ of the people.

 Locke believed that reason and human consciousness were the

gateways to contentment and liberty, and he demolished the notion
that human knowledge was somehow pre-programmed and
mystical.
 Locke’s ideas reflected the earlier but equally influential works of
Thomas Hobbes, which similarly advocated new social contracts
between the state and civil society as the key to unlocking personal
happiness for all.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau stated that society should be ruled by the "general will"

of the people.
Baron de Montesquieu declared that power should not be concentrated in the

hands of any one individual.

He recommended separating power among executive, legislative, judicial

branches of government

Several ideas dominated Enlightenment thought, including

rationalism, empiricism, progressivism, and cosmopolitanism.
Rationalism is the idea that humans are capable of using their faculty of reason to gain

knowledge. This was a sharp turn away from the prevailing idea that people needed to rely on

scripture or church authorities for knowledge.

Empiricism promotes the idea that knowledge comes from experience and observation of the

world.

Progressivism is the belief that through their powers of reason and observation, humans can

make unlimited, linear progress over time; this belief was especially important as a response

to the carnage and upheaval of the English Civil Wars in the 17th century.

Finally, cosmopolitanism reflected Enlightenment thinkers’ view of themselves as actively

engaged citizens of the world as opposed to provincial and close-minded individuals. In all,

Enlightenment thinkers endeavored to be ruled by reason, not prejudice.

The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific

method and reductionism along with increased questioning of
religious orthodoxy.
  The core ideas advocated by modern democracies, including
the civil society, human and civil rights, and separation of
powers, are the product of the Enlightenment.
 The sciences and academic disciplines (including social sciences
and the humanities) as we know them today, based on
empirical methods, are also rooted in the Age of
Enlightenment.
 All these developments, which followed and partly overlapped
with the European exploration and colonization of the Americas
and the intensification of the European presence in Asia and
Africa, make the Enlightenment a starting point of what some
historians define as the European Moment in World History:
the long period of often tragic European domination over the
rest of the world.

Key terms

Reductionism
Several related but distinct philosophical positions regarding the
connections between theories, “reducing” one idea to another,
more basic one. In the sciences, its methodologies attempt to
explain entire systems in terms of their individual, constituent
parts and interactions.
Scientific method
A body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring
new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous
knowledge that apply empirical or measurable evidence subject
to specific principles of reasoning. It has characterized natural
science since the 17th century, consisting of systematic
observation, measurement, and experimentation, and the
formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
Cogito ergo sum
 A Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes usually
translated into English as “I think, therefore I am.” The phrase
originally appeared in his Discourse on the Method. This
proposition became a fundamental element of Western
philosophy, as it purported to form a secure foundation for
knowledge in the face of radical doubt. While other knowledge
could be a figment of imagination, deception, or mistake,
Descartes asserted that the very act of doubting one’s own
existence served—at minimum—as proof of the reality of one’s
own mind.
Empiricism
The theory that knowledge comes primarily from sensory
experience. It emphasizes evidence, especially data gathered
through experimentation and use of the scientific method.

National Varieties

1. The Enlightenment took hold in most European

countries, often with a specific local emphasis.
2. For example, in France it became associated with anti-
government and anti-Church radicalism,
3. In Germany it reached deep into the middle classes and
took a spiritualistic and nationalistic tone without
threatening governments or established churches.
Government responses varied widely.
4. In France, the government was hostile and
Enlightenment thinkers fought against its censorship,
sometimes being imprisoned or hounded into exile.
5. The British government largely ignored the
Enlightenment’s leaders in England and Scotland.
 6. The Scottish Enlightenment, with its mostly liberal
Calvinist and Newtonian focus, played a major role in
the further development of the transatlantic
Enlightenment.
7. In Italy, the significant reduction in the Church’s power
led to a period of great thought and invention, including
scientific discoveries. In Russia, the government began
to actively encourage the proliferation of arts and
sciences in the mid-18th century. This era produced the
first Russian university, library, theater, public museum,
and independent press.
8. Several Americans, especially Benjamin Franklin and
Thomas Jefferson, played a major role in bringing
Enlightenment ideas to the New World and in
influencing British and French thinkers.
9. The cultural exchange during the Age of Enlightenment
ran in both directions across the Atlantic. In their
development of the ideas of natural freedom, Europeans
and American thinkers drew from American Indian
cultural practices and beliefs.

Major Enlightenment Ideas

In the mid-18th century, Europe witnessed an explosion of
philosophic and scientific activity that challenged traditional
doctrines and dogmas.

The philosophic movement was led by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques

Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than
faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural
law, and for science based on experiments and observation.

The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a

separation of powers in a government, a concept which was
enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States
Constitution.

Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and

thought.

Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the

sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow
of religion and traditional authority in favor of the development of
free speech and thought.

Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism

and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment
ideal of advancement and progress.

However, as with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science

were not seen universally

In religion, Enlightenment-era commentary was a response to the

preceding century of religious conflict in Europe.

 Enlightenment thinkers sought to curtail the political power of

organized religion and thereby prevent another age of
intolerant religious war.
 A number of novel ideas developed, including deism (belief in
God the Creator, with no reference to the Bible or any other
source) and atheism.
 The latter was much discussed but had few proponents.
  Many, like Voltaire, held that without belief in a God who
punishes evil, the moral order of society was undermined.

The increased consumption of reading materials of all sorts was

one of the key features of the “social” Enlightenment.

The Industrial Revolution allowed consumer goods to be

produced in greater quantities at lower prices, encouraging the

spread of books, pamphlets, newspapers, and journals.

Cave’s innovation was to create a monthly digest of news and

commentary on any topic the educated public might be interested in,

from commodity prices to Latin poetry.

The ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in

inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789 and
emphasized the rights of common men as opposed to the exclusive
rights of the elites.

As such, they laid the foundation for modern, rational, democratic

societies.
However, historians of race, gender, and class note that
Enlightenment ideals were not originally envisioned as universal in
the today’s sense of the word.

Thomas Hobbes:

 Wrote Leviathan
 People are naturally cruel, greedy, and selfish
 If not strictly controlled, they would rob and oppress
one another
 Life in the “State of Nature” would be “solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short
 To escape – people enter into a Social Contract: an
agreement by which they give up the state of nature
for an organized society
 Only a powerful government could ensure an orderly
society
Hobbes's Leviathan-

Published in 1651, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan helped

shape Western political thinking.
The writings of Denis Diderot, for example, linked
reason with the maintenance of virtue and its ability
to check potentially destructive human passions.
Influential works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued
that man was born free and rational, but was
enslaved by the constraints imposed on society by
governments.
• Rousseau
– People in their rural state were good but
corrupted by evils of society, especially
unequal distribution of property
– Some control was necessary but should be
minimal, but by a freely elected government
– “general will” best conscience of the people
– Individual subordinate the community
– “The Social Contract”
– “Man born free, everywhere he is in chains.”
The chains of society
The concept of the ”Noble Savage.”
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.
Civil liberty - invest ALL rights and liberties into a
society.

True political sovereignty, he argued, always

remained in the hands of the people if the rule of law
was properly maintained by a democratically
endorsed government:
a radical political philosophy that came to
influence revolutionary movements in France and
America later in the century.

The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau, began to question the idea of the divine right of Kings. In The
Social Contract, he wrote that the King does not, in fact, receive his power
from God, but rather from the general will of the people. implies that “the
people” can also take away that power.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

Margaret Cavendish's Blazing World
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Late Enlightenment was dominated by Immanuel Kant
(1724–1804) whose Critique of Pure Reason (1781), alongside
his other critiques (The Critique of Practical Reason, 1788;
The Critique of Judgement, 1790), came to be viewed as the
monumental work that initiated modern philosophy by
seeking to determine the limits of reason and metaphysics—
that is, what kind of claims can reason be expected to
establish securely.
►Critique of Pure Reason, 1781
►“What is Enlightenment?”, 1784
►Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, 1786
» Separated science and morality into separate branches
of knowledge
» Science could describe nature, it could not provide a
guide for morality.
» He introduced the concept of transcendentalism  some
things are known by methods other than empirically.
» The belief in the existence of a non-rational way to
understand things.
» The existence of neither time nor space is determined
by empirical understanding.
» These type of things are a priori.
» They transcend sensory experience.
» They are pure, not empirical [[concepts like faith, pre-
existence, life after death].

Kant’s essay was submitted on invitation to the German

periodical the Berliniische Monatsschrift, a monthly magazine
edited by Johan Erich Biester and Friedrich Gedike, in
response to the question pose a year earlier by the Rev Johan
Friedrich Zoller, a Prussian government official.
His question ‘What is Enlightenment?’ was addressed to the
intellectual community at large.

Denis Diderot, Enlightenment philosopher, writer and

art critic, wrote that the aim of art was “to make virtue
attractive, vice odious, ridicule forceful; that is the aim of
every honest man who takes up the pen, the brush or the
chisel” (Essai sur la peinture).
Diderot’s Encyclopedie pages
 Political freedoms, contracts and rights

Public debates about what qualified as the best forms of

government were heavily influenced by enlightened ideals,
most notably Rousseau’s and Diderot’s notions of egalitarian
freedom and the ‘social contract’.
By the end of the 18th century most European nations
harboured movements calling for political reform, inspired by
radical enlightened ideals which advocated clean breaks from
tyranny, monarchy and absolutism.
 Late 18th-century radicals were especially inspired by
the writings of Thomas Paine, whose influence on
revolutionary politics was felt in both America and France.
Born into humble beginnings in England in 1737, by
the 1770s Paine had arrived in America where he began
agitating for revolution.
Paine’s most radical works, The Rights of Man and later The
Age of Reason (both successful best-sellers in Europe), drew
extensively on Rousseau’s notions of the social contract.
Paine reserved particular criticism for the hereditary
privileges of ruling elites, whose power over the people, he
believed, was only ever supported through simple historical
tradition and the passive acceptance of the social order
among the common people.
The Rights of Man (1791) was in part a defence of the
French Revolution, and was thus perceived as an attack on
the monarchy in Britain.

 Copernicus & Galileo trusted their own experience,

their observations of the stars, over the authority of
Ptolemy. They concluded that the world circled the sun
rather than the other way around.
Newton discovered the laws of gravity, motion, &
created a new branch of mathematics - calculus.
A valid experiment would be repeatable. Thus others who
turned telescopes toward the skies should observe the same
things Copernicus & Galileo did.
- people wanted proof; did not want to accept an idea as
true just because some person of authority said.
- British Constitution changed when Charles II took the
throne; he realized (unlike his father who believed in Divine
Right of Kings) that Parliament ruled
- parties and political factions became stable and more
permanent
- Tories : King's party; conservative & Anglican
- Whigs : represented $ from rising middle class;
Puritans (Protestant Revolution had economical effect)

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543)

On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres

 Did not intend for theories to challenge
church doctrine
 Heliocentric view – the earth revolves
around the sun which is the center of the
universe
 Universe seems infinite
  Directly challenged Ptolemy’s 2nd century
AD view of a geocentric universe
 Seemed to challenge the Bible’s Book of
Genesis that also put forth a geocentric view
Religious reaction to the Copernican theory
Martin Luther and John Calvin condemned
Copernicus’ theory; pointed to biblical passages
supporting the medieval view
Catholic Reaction initially less forceful as the
church didn’t always interpret the Bible literally
By 1616, the Catholic Church proclaimed the
Copernican theory as false and persecuted who
advanced his views
Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630)
 First great Protestant scientist; assistant to
Brahe
 Mathematically proved the Copernican
theory
 Developed three laws of planetary motion
 Orbits of the planets are elliptical
  Planets do not move at uniform speed while
in their orbits
 The time it takes for a planet to orbit the sun
is directly based on its distance from the sun.
Galileo Galilei (1546-1642)
• Developed the laws of motion
– Used the experimental method
– Acceleration experiment: gravity was a
universal force that produced uniform
acceleration
» All falling objects descend with equal
velocity regardless of their weight
– Laws of inertia: an object that is in
motion remains in motion until it is
topped by some external force
• Validated Copernicus’ heliocentric view with
the aid of a telescope
– Galileo was the first to use the telescope
as a scientific instrument; he built one
himself
 – Demonstrated that the moon and other
planets were not perfectly round like a
crystal sphere
– Discovered the 4 moons of Jupiter thus
refuting the notion that Jupiter was
embedded in an impenetrable crystal
sphere
• Galileo’s findings became controversial in
Catholic countries
– His views were largely supported in
Protestant northern Europe where
reformers had questioned Catholic
doctrines had questions Catholic
doctrines
– The Catholic Church in 1616 declared
Copernican theory to be heretical
– 1632 Galileo published Dialogue
Concerning the Two Chiefs World
Systems in which he wrote about the
Copernican system as a mathematical
proposition
 – 1633, The inquisition of Pope Urban VII
forced Galileo to retract his support of
the Copernican theory
» He remained under house arrest the
rest of his life

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Formalized the empirical method that had already
been used by Brahe and Galileo
Inductive Method for scientific
experimentation
Begin with inductive observation, form a
hypothesis, conduct experiments and then
organize the data
Bacon’s inductive method, coupled with
Descartes deductive reason formed the
backbone of the modern scientific method
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Discourse on Method advocated the use of
deductive reasoning
 Employed deductive reasoning to prove
existence: cogito ergo sum (“I think therefore
I am”)
Depended on logic alone
Believed that science must:
Start with clear and incontrovertible facts
Subdivide each program into as many parts as
necessary, using a step-by step logical
sequence
Demonstrated the relationship between
algebra and geometry
Developed analytical geometry
Cartesian Dualism – divided all existence into
the spiritual and the material
The spiritual can only be examined through
deductive reasoning (logic)
The material is subject to the experimental
method
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
» Incorporated the astronomy of Copernicus
and Kepler with the physics of Galileo into an
 overarching theory explaining order and
design to the universe
» Principal of universal gravitation
» Detailed in Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy (1687) (known as Principia)
» Natural laws of motion – gravitation – are
evident in the movement of heavenly bodies
and earthly objects
» Newtown developed a set of mathematical
principles to explain motion

• Every body in the universe attracts every

other body in the universe in a precise
mathematical relationship
• Since these natural laws are unchangeable
and predictable, God’s active participation in
the natural world is not needed to explain
the forces of nature
– Challenged Medieval beliefs
– This came to the be the foundation of
the Enlightenment view of God: deism
1. What is the Enlightenment?
2. What caused the Enlightenment?

Characteristics of the Enlightenment

1. Rationalism
2. Secularism
3. Scientific Method
4. Utilitarianism
5. Tolerance
6. Optimism
7. Freedoms
8. Education of the Masses
9. Legal Reforms
10. Constitutionalism
 William Blake’s Newton, 1795

The American “Philosophes”

 John Adams (1745-1826)
 Ben Franklin (1706-1790)
 Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
…...…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….

Enlightenment Ideas Spread

Salons
The new literature, arts, science and philosophy
were regular topics of discussion in the salons
Informal social gatherings at which writers, artists,
philosophers, and other exchanged ideas
Originated in the 1600’s when a group of
noblewomen in Paris began inviting a few friends
to their homes for poetry readings
Only the most witty, intelligent and well read
people were invited to the salons
By 1700’s some middle class women began
holding salons
“Women Ruled Then”

► Wealthy Jewish women created nine of

the fourteen salons in Berlin.
► In Warsaw, Princess Zofia Czartoryska
gathered around her the reform leaders of
Poland-Lithuania.
► Middle-class women in London used
their salons to raise money to publish
women’s writings.

A Parisian Salon
Madame Geoffrin’s Salon

Deism---a religious philosophy that developed

around the following concepts:

a)an impersonal deity (God)

b)God is found in nature. You do not have to
attend a formal church.
c)There is a common morality amongst humans
that is seen in the similarities between Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam.
d)It is a religion based upon REASON and not
Faith.
• The word "Deism" is derived from the Latin
word for God: "Deus." Deism involves the
belief in the existence of God, on purely
rational grounds, without any reliance on
revealed religion or religious authority.
• Deists:
– Do not accept the belief of most religions
that God revealed himself to humanity
through the writings of the Bible, the
Qur'an or other religious texts.
– Disagree with strong Atheists who assert
that there is no evidence of the existence
of God.
Many thinkers of the Enlightenment were trying
to share their ideas with others, they consistently
tried to publish their works. They had to deal with
strict censorship, from both religious and
governmental institutions in the late seventeenth
and eighteenth centries; therefore, censorship
and press freedom were key topics because
“press freedom. . . is the foremost instrument of
human enlightenment” and “the root of all
political and social evil. . . was lack of freedom of
expression and the press.”
Freedom of the press was essential for the
spread of reason and enlightened ideals, but
in order to reach this step, many philosophes
believed in the necessity of freedom of
conscience.
This led to Enlightenment thinkers writing on
a wide variety of subjects, including religious
toleration and freedom of speech, as well as
freedom of the press and freedom to criticize
the government.
 Precursors to the Enlightenment,
or early Enlightenment thinkers,
John Locke, Benedict de Spinoza, and Pierre Bayle.
They and other early thinkers influenced a lot of
the work of the main Enlightenment period.
Three prominent thinkers of this period include
Voltaire; Charles de Secondat, the Baron de
Montesquieu; and Karl Friedrich Bahrdt.
By analyzing the works of these six thinkers, one
can get a well-rounded understanding of
Enlightenment ideas.
► Enlightenment did not happen in isolation.
► It was shaped by various prior events in
history, most notably the Scientific
Revolution, and it influenced many events
that came after it, including the American and
French Revolutions.
► The Enlightenment’s impact on the
American Revolution is fairly easy to see
through an evaluation of the arguments for
Revolution, the arguments for a Constitution
 and Bill of Rights, and most importantly,
through an analysis of these documents
themselves.

Several early thinkers promoted these

ideas prior to the Enlightenment, and one
of the most notable precursors was the
well-known
1.empiricist, John Locke, who wrote primarily
about religious toleration
2.radical thinkers - Baruch Spinoza, the Dutch
philosopher often associated with his work
regarding Descartes, himself a pioneer in the
Enlightenment ideals regarding freedom of
speech and expression
3.Another - pre-Enlightenment supporter of
these freedoms was Pierre Bayle, a French
thinker who supported freedom of speech
and could even be said to be “obsessed” with
Spinoza’s work.
Locke was slightly more accepted than either
Spinoza or Bayle at the time due to the fact that
he was a “Christian rationalist” who tried to
present freedom as compatible with standard
religious and church practices
Two Treatises of Government. The first treatise
deals with patriarchy and Locke’s disapproval of
the system, whereas the second treatise discusses
natural rights and how and why people organize
themselves into civilized society.
 “An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding.” This work is not necessarily
political, and it may seem odd to consider it
when discussing Locke as a proponent of free
speech.
 This essay discusses human knowledge and
understanding and how knowledge is formed.
It is here that Locke developed his theory of
the human mind as a “tabula rasa” or blank
slate.
 At birth, the mind is a blank slate, which is
later filled by experience. This work is one of
 Locke’s most famous empiricist works, which
influenced many other philosophers.

Spinoza was probably one of the most extreme

thinkers in the seventeenth century regarding
toleration and freedom and the scope of religion.
Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jew
born in November 1632.
His family had been Sephardic Jews who fled to
Amsterdam to escape persecution on the Iberian
Peninsula.
He had a traditional Jewish education and then
worked with his family until he was excluded from
Jewish society at the age of twenty-three. He was
excommunicated for his controversial writings,
and the leaders of the Dutch Jewish community
did not want to draw the government’s ire, which
might threaten their position in the community.
Spinoza argued for a philosophy of tolerance
and freedom; he even refused to take a
professorship at the University of Heidelberg out
of fear that it “might compromise his
philosophical principles and freedom.”
Spinoza wrote multiple works, but many were
not published until after his death due to his
concern with censorship. Although Spinoza
started his career by analyzing Descartes’
works, he also covered many other issues,
including freedom of speech and expression.
However, his most famous work is arguably his
Ethics, first published in 1677. This book is
essentially a list of various propositions, and it
also includes some of Spinoza’s criticism of
Descartes.
“A key aim of [Spinoza’s] toleration
theory, consequently, was to ground
freedom to publish one’s views however
much these are decried by theologians
and by the majority.”
For Spinoza, the freedom of thought and
freedom of the press were of the utmost
importance. Freedom of belief and liberty
 of worship faded into the background and
were only briefly mentioned
Spinoza was much more likely to promote
freedom for all religions, not just
Christianity

Pierre Bayle, who was born in 1647 and promoted

toleration of divergent ideas and beliefs and
believed in a separation between faith and
reason. He was educated first by his father, a
Calvinist minister, before attending an academy
and finally, a Jesuit college.
 Bayle first began his “attack on superstition,
intolerance, bad philosophy, and bad history”
in his work Miscellaneous thoughts on the
Comet.
 He promoted his theory of toleration in his
Historical and Critical Dictionary and
Philosophical Commentary

Literature
We can divide the era into three sub-periods.

1660-1700 Restoration Literature

Dryden was the main literary figure of this
period. He wrote in the modes popular in that
time - verse, comedy, tragedy, hero plays, ode,
satire, translation, & critical essay. The style of
the time is less ornate than before, with a more
plain, straightforward approach.
1700-1745 The Augustan period
The literature of this era is "chiefly a literature
of wit, concerned with civilization and social
relationships, and consequently, it is critical and in
some degree moral or satiric".
It is called the Augustan period because the
golden era of Roman writing was under the
Emperor Augustus. This period tried to match the
earlier one.
1745-1785 The Samuel Johnson period
 This was a period of intense prose writing.
Earlier periods had tended to produce great
poetry, but not great poetry so much.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet of the

Enlightenment and Staunch neoclassicist
– Created new translations of Iliad and Odyssey
Roman Catholic Self taught
– Essay on Man and Rape of Lock his two most
famous pieces.
– Essay on Man assesses Humankind’s place in
the universal scheme. Evil is simply part of
God’s plan.
– “Whatever is, is right”
Intellectuals believe in God but see him as a "watchmaker"
Deists skeptical of organized religion
Catholic Church was attacked
Deists struggle with personal standards
Denial of providence (Voltaire) disputed by others (Pope,
Rousseau)
What was the Age of Enlightenment/Age of Reasonand what led to this shift in thought?

•Who were the prominent historical figures during the Age of Enlightenment and in what ways were
they similar and/or different in their philosophies?

•What impact did the Age of Enlightenment have throughout various countries on society, culture,
politics, etc.?

•How did the Enlightenment philosophers influence American government?