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The European Enlightenment developed in part due to an energetic group of French thinkers who thrived in the middle of the eighteenth century: the philosophes. This group was a heterogenous mix of people who pursued a variety of intellectual interests: scientific, mechanical, literary, philosophical, and sociological. They were united by a few common themes: an unwavering doubt in the perfectibility of human beings, a fierce desire to dispel erroneous systems of thought (such as religion) and a dedication to systematizing the various intellectual disciplines. |
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The rallying cry for the philosophes was the concept of progress. By mastering both natural sciences and human sciences, humanity could harness the natural world for its own benefit and learn to live peacefully with one another. This was the ultimate goal, for the philosophes , of rational and intentional progress. |
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The central ideas of the philosophe movement were:
The miracle years for the philosophes occurred between 1748 and 1751: all the outstanding works of the philosophes first saw the light of day during these intellectually exciting years: Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws (1748), Rousseau's Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences (1750), and, finally, the great capstone of the French philosophes movement, the first edition of Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie in 1751. None of the philosophes engaged in speculative philosophy or abstract thinking (very much); they were primarily concerned with the betterment of society and human beings so their focus was overwhelmingly practical. This concern was focused on reforming individual human beings and on outdated human institutions and belief systems. |
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Voltaire |
Besides Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the most influential of the French philosophes was François Marie Arouet or, as he signed his books, Voltaire. Voltaire concentrated on two specific philosophical projects. First, he untiringly worked to introduce empiricism, as it was practiced by the English, into French intellectual life. Second, he persisted in proselytizing for religious tolerance; in fact, most of his works that we still read today had as their theme religious tolerance. |
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Empiricism: Empirical philosophy, which was first systematized by Aristotle in the fourth century BC, was reintroduced into Western culture with a vengeance by English scientists in the seventeenth century. Like Descartes, English philosophers such as Isaac Newton began by doubting everything. Unlike Descartes, who developed a non-empirical philosophy to answer that doubt, Newton and his crew based all human certainty on empirical verification through the senses. Voltaire spat all over the French rationalist tradition and worked tirelessly to develop a French philosophy based on empiricism. Although the French solidly remained rooted in rationalism, much of French empirical science owes its origins to the works of Voltaire. |
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A Treatise on Tolerance : Voltaire had written most of his life on religious tolerance and had gained a large audience. In 1762, however, he was fired into action by the execution of an innocent Protestant in Toulouse. This man, Jean Calas, was accused of murdering his son before that son could convert to Catholicism. Like the OJ Simpson case, this murder created a sensation all throughout largely Catholic France. Calas was inhumanly tortured and eventually strangled, but he never confessed to the crime. When Voltaire heard about this gross miscarriage of justice, he made Jean Calas's case his cause and in 1763 he published A Treatise on Tolerance that focused entirely on the Calas case. Voltaire's argument was very simple: the most inhuman crimes perpetrated by humanity throughout its enitre history have been perpetrated in the name of religion. Mass extermination, torture, infanticide, regicide: behind just about every abominable human crime lay some religious zealotry or passionate religious commitment. The most vicious crimes, though, are those perpetrated by Christians against other Christians who belong to a different sect or church. Since religion does not admit of certainty, and since so many sects and religions have so many things in common, the Treatise argues that people should be allowed to practice whatever religion they see fit, particularly if it's a Christian religion. Individual governments should not impose religious systems on an entire state. The ultimate argument of the book is that secular values should take precedence over religious values; until that happens, human history will be marked by viciousness and inhumanity. |
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Candide : Voltaire's most famous book, however, is Candide , a novel which he published in 1759. Although Voltaire is the most representative philosophe of his time, Candide is a strange book in that it attacks many of the assumptions of the philosophe movement. In particular, the novel makes fun of those who think that human beings can endlessly improve themselves and their environment. The main character of the novel, Candide, is set adrift in a hostile world and futilely tries to hold on to his optimistic belief that this "is the best of all possible worlds" as his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, keeps insisting. He travels throughout Europe, South America, and the Middle East, and on the way he encounters terrible natural disasters and even more terrible disasters perpetrated by human beings on their fellow human beings. He learns in the end that the only solution is productive work that benefits those around you. |
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Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert |
The great manifesto of the
philosophe movement was no small document; by the
late 1740's, everyone understood that the sum total and the
entire spirit of the movement was contained in the
Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond
d'Alembert, known simply as Diderot's |
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Montesquieu |
The baron de Montesquieu concerned himself entirely with political theory. His Spirit of the Laws (1748) sought to explain how different groups of people end up with different and varying forms of government. He argued that climate, terrain, and agricultural conditions largely predetermined both human behavior and various forms of authority. However, Montesquieu also believed that there was a single, best form of government andthat humans could overcome any and all geographical and climatic conditions. For Montesquieu, the best form of human government was embodied in the English constitution after the Glorious Revolution. In particular, the English constitution divided state powers into three independent branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. Since no one person or group was in charge, the maximum amount of political and economic freedom was made available to the general population. He called this equal distribution of power "checks and balances," and his theories of government would be the single most powerful influence upon the formation of American government at the end of the century. |
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English philosophes |
The philosophes movement was not confined to France, but soon spilled over into other European countries. In England, the movement was championed by David Hume, Adam Smith, and Edward Gibbon. It was natural that the English would take to the new ideas, since the French philosophes were so heavily influenced by English thought: Voltaire by English empiricism and Montesquieu by English government. |
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David Hume (1711-1776) is perhaps the most important English philosopher of the eighteenth century. He was a radical skeptic and his most influential work, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding , argued that human beings can know nothing whatsoever with certainty. Even more influential were his ideas on ethics; he argued for a moral relativism. Since no one can know anything for certain, that means that no individual is in a position to pass judgement on alternative moral systems. |
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Adam Smith (1723-1790) is one of the most important theorists of the eighteenth century period. His book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), was the first book to systematically theorize capitalism and stands as the book that pretty much invented economics in the Western world. |
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Smith has one and only one concern in
the book: to explain how nations as a collective grow
wealthier. While other eighteenth century thinkers were
concerned about improvements in knowledge and society, Smith
believed that human progress largely consisted in the steady
improvement of human life through the increasing wealth of a
nation as a whole. The Wealth of Nations is a
systematic attempt to explain the processes whereby the
collective wealth of a nation grows. Second, all monopolies and regulations stifle productive labor. Human beings work for their own profit; regulations and monopolies do away with the profit incentive and so discourage human productivity. In place of these regulations, Smith proposed a natural system of economic liberty, in which each individual in a society is free to choose how to expend their productive labor and their capital. This economic liberty was called laissez faire (let them do as they please); if individuals were allowed to pursue their own selfish aims, then the wealth of the nation as a whole would increase. This selfishness, though, would not result in social injustice; behind this natural economic liberty lay an "invisible hand" which guided people into right action. Third, the material world was an infinite store of
resources that could be exploited for the benefit of
humankind. It was incumbent on humans to approach material
resources, not as scarce, but as infinitely abundant. The
idea that the world is an infinite storehouse of resources
open to human exploitation is such a common aspect of our
lives that it's hard to realize that it's a modern idea that
can be dated back to Smith's book. |
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Italian philosophes |
In Italy, the most influential adherent
of the philosophe movement was Cesare Beccaria
(1738-1794), whose book, On Crimes and Punishments
(1764) radically changed the European outlook on justice and
the penal system. Beccaria argued that judicial punishment
should not be used for |
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German philosophes |
In Germany, the most prominent thinker influenced by the philosophe movement was Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781). The movement never gained much ground in Germany and the Papal States, for censorship was very tight and religious authorities, particularly in Protestant states, were extremely intolerant of new ideas. Lessing primarily argued for religious tolerance; his most famous work is Nathan the Wise , written in 1779. In it, he argued for religious tolerance of the Jews and, even further, that human excellence was in no way related to religious affiliation. He carried this argument even further in his work, On the Education of the Human Race in 1780. This is the classic work of the history of human progress; Lessing argues that all world religions, including Christianity, are steps in the intellectual, social, and spiritual progress of humanity. The ultimate goal of this progress is the point at which humanity abandons religion entirely in favor of pure reason. |
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Social Agitation |
Since the philosophes of all
countries believed that human beings and human society was
perfectible, the philosophes were energetic
activists and agitators, sometimes incurring great personal
risk for their beliefs and actions. They believed that human
society could be perfected a bit at a time. Some of these
efforts were useless, while others, such as agitation for
judicial reform following the principles outlined in
Beccaria's book, led to significant improvement. It should
not be overlooked, however, that the most effective
agitators using the ideas of the philosophe movement
were the American revolutionaries in the latter quarter of
the century. The foundation and formation of the American
Republic was, by and large, the product of putting
philosophe ideas into practice at great personal
risk. Richard Hooker |
