Introduction: Purpose of the LectureTo examine the ideas of the Enlightenment (explore the issue of how important is the "old" kind of intellectual history)Alas, Dead White Males againTo attempt some broad generalizations about itTo look at some specific examples (3 of the most famous philosophes)To examine the determinants or causes of these ideasHow did they arise and why were they attractive to people in the 18th century?Which classes of people (or kinds of people) were attracted to them?To indicate the relationship of these matters to the previous lecture on the balance of powerThe ideas of the EnlightenmentThe word "enlightenment" suggests what these ideas wereThe men of the Enlightenment believed they were c>From this sense of coming into the light emerges a complex of other ideas and values:Esteem for clarity, simplicity, directness, order, regularityThus, they hated obscurity, unnecessary complexity, deviousness of thought, artificiality (all of which they associated with previous centuries)These were the Dark Ages—feudal law, scholastic pReason: The men of the Enlightenment, or philosophes, believed that "reason" was the embodiment of "light"Thus the Enlightenment has been called the Age of ReasonNature: Similarly, reason and "nature" went togetherObserving nature and using reason allowed one to find the proper path, to discover nature's secrets, to arrive at proper guidelines to how life should be livedHatred of Unreason: Again, one must note that the philosophes' esteem for reason was exceeded by their hatred of "unreason"Thus, they were inclined to distrust strong emotions, those that overcame reason, unbridled enthusiasmsSuch emotions led to fanaticism—to all that was sSecular humanism: Life on earth is itself a good; human beings are the measure of all thingsClear connections can be seen with classic philosophies, those that esteemed man as "god-like" in potentialLiberalism: Freedom and toleration is necessary for reason to be able to workEspecially important is freedom of thought and expression (political freedom is a more complex and controversial matter)The Enemy: the Church (and organized religion)It is not difficult to understand how the Church, organized religion, symbolized all that was hateful to the men of the EnlightenmentThe Church was the central institution of the Dark AgesThe Church, in their eyes, encouraged superstition, hatred, fanaticismIt was known for obscurantism, deviousness, repressionIt was similarly enmeshed in the "irrational" and hopelessly confused institutions of feudalismThe Church looked at the world as a vale of tearsThe Church was intolerant, repressive, illiberal—The "religion" and dogma of the philosophesIn some regards it may be said that the philosophes did not quite live up to their own ideals of reason, nature, and tolerationAt least by twentieth century standards, they were not particularly tolerant (of course "toleration" is an elusive concept)They accepted certain beliefs basically on faithIn ways that are not immediately obvious, they fell into obscurity and confused, contorted reasoningMany philosophes found it difficult to believe that a sincere, honest, and intelligent person could also willingly be a Christian or a deeply religious JewAnd the Christianity or Judaism that they presented to their readers was often a twisted parody of those faiths, or at least a one-sided version, seeing only the faultsThey did much the same, in other words, that the There was of course this difference: The Church aHowever unfair or bigoted the philosophes were inWhat the philosophes did with "unaided reason" was at times not all that different from what Christians and Jews did with itThat is, they, too had a kind of basic body of belief, accepted on faith, that they reasoned aboutFor example: They rejected a Christian god but still retained a belief in a deity who created and ordered the universeThat cannot be demonstrated by unaided reason to the satisfaction of allVery few philosophes were atheists or agnostics; most were Deists (believing in a god, but not a personal Judeo-Christian god)Similarly, nearly all of them retained a belief in some kind of future state, where good men would be rewarded and bad punishedAgain, such beliefs cannot be demonstrated by unaided reasonFinally, in a more general way, many had a remarkably naive belief that "nature" was a sufficient guide for human actionThat, somehow, people could easily and without danger of error, learn from "nature" about how best to organize their society, their livesAnd what they claimed to learn from nature often In sum, we might say that the philosophes believed in a "secular religion"One with its own articles of faith, its own intolerances, its own vagueness and contradictionsStill, there was unquestionably one large difference between this secular religion and traditional Christianity or JudaismIt avoided theological or metaphysical speculationIt was centered mostly around this world, around secular matters, in other wordsThe beliefs of the philosophes moved away from speculation about God, the angels, the Trinity, etc.And they had little use for the authority of the Bible, the Church Fathers, the Scholastic philosophers, or the TalmudStill, the point remains that for them "nature" was a kind of buzz word, just as more traditional theological terms were for othersTheir faith in "nature" might be termed nearly as "blind" as a faith in "revelation"Three Philosophes: Montesquieu, Voltaire, RousseauWe need to see as concretely as possible how these various generalizations apply (for there are many exceptions)Looking a three specific philosophes will also help us to appreciate the considerable diversity of the EnlightenmentThis was a diversity of individuals but also a diversity of period, since the tone and emphases of Enlightenment thinkers changes in the course of the 18th centuryI have chose three of the most famous, each of which may be said to be typical of what has been termed the three different generations of the EnlightenmentMontesquieuMentioned briefly last lecture as author of The Spirit of the Laws, defender of the parlements, spokesman for conservative opposition to the exercise of unlimited royal powerHe was also known for his other writings, especially for theories of geographical determinismHe is typical of the First Generation, what some have called the "pre-Enlightenment"cautious, relatively conservative, with an aristocratic conception of liberty (or,