Becoming Enlightened

HUM 2052: Civilization IISpring 2013Dr. Perdigao

January 30, 2013

From Ancient to Modern• Traditionalists: fear of results of individualism, lack of moral

responsibility, desire to uphold “established values”

• Moderns: saw significance of individual autonomy, education for women, intellectual and geographical exploration

• Both camps emphasized reason as guide, and Enlightenment as “the gaining of illumination by means of the power of the human mind” (Lawall 1)

• Yet recognized the limits of “reason” as well—belief in reason does not “necessarily make human beings reasonable” (2).

• Question of the possibility of the existence of an “entirely rational physical and moral universe” (2).

• Loss and liberation, crisis and opportunity

On the Shoulders of Giants• “By relying on convention, eighteenth-century writers could be seen

as trying to control an unstable world. The classical past, for many, provided an emblem of that stability, a standard of permanence. But some felt that the high valuing of the past was problematic, the problem epitomized by the quarrel of ancients versus moderns in England and France. At stake in this controversy was, among other things, the value of permanence as opposed to the value of change.” (6)[trying to control what is unstable with change, return to past as permanence]

• Belief that nothing could equal the works of Homer, that all would be poor and inadequate imitations.[Divide—whether we are better or worse than our predecessors]

• “Those proud to be moderns, on the other hand, held that men (possibly even women) standing on the shoulders of the ancients could see further than their predecessors. The new was conceivably more valuable than the old. One might discover flaws even in revered figures of the classical past. And not everything had yet been accomplished.” (6)[Authority of writing called into question, the reader’s role]

Replacing Religion?• Shift in centers—“God seemed to be moving further away” (1)

• Divine right—that monarchs had authority of God—called into question and rejected through period of civil war in England (King’s execution in 1649) and French by end of eighteenth century

• Religion still a “political reality”—with conflict between Protestant and Catholics abated yet resurgence with James II’s marriage to a Catholic and in France Louis XIV in 1685 revoked the Edict of Nantes (granting religious tolerance to Protestants) (1)

• Eighteenth century tumult—leads to rebellions against Stuart succession and American Revolution, internal divisions weighted more than struggles between nations

• Watchmaker, Great Chain of Being

• Order of Newton’s universe or operation of a divine plan (natural laws through which the universe operates)— a “watchmaker who winds a watch and leaves it running” (2).

• From Deism (existence of God evidenced by his creations) to the Great Chain of Being (man as apex in large continuum between society and the universe) (4).

Reconfiguring Society• Hobbes sees man as savage who bands together “For the sake of

preservation and progress” (2).

• Notions of man as civilized independent of or part of a larger society

• Philosophies of Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau illuminating new and modern concept of the relationship between the state and the individual: states should exist to enhance human happiness (Perry 448).

• A hierarchical ordering of society evolves, leading to new opportunities in education, with casualties among the female population with restriction in education (and a larger sense of their subordination to men) (2).

• Questions of limitations imposed on man (and woman)

• Questions writers raise during the period: “Swift, lashing the English for institutionalized hypocrisy; Pope, calling attention to ambiguities inherent in sexual mores; Voltaire and Johnson, sending naïve fictional protagonists to encounter the world’s inconsistencies of profession and practice—all of these writers call attention to the deceptiveness and the possible misuses of social norms as well as to their necessity” (3).

A New Tradition in Reason?• The Enlightenment: eighteenth century writers and scholars applying

“critical, reasoning spirit” to problems in the world

• Three major factors: revulsion against absolutism; new freedom of publishing; impact of Scientific Revolution (Perry 420)

• Belief in progress; importance of education; question of freedom (despite existence of slavery)

• Scientific Revolution, idea that “no institution or dogma had a monopoly on truth” (Perry 415)

• Weakening of traditional Christianity (Perry 416)

• In the Dutch Republic in 1785, “society founded by women interested in receiving a scientific education” (Perry 415) in Middleburg, yet most academies excluded women until the 20th century

• Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), challenging traditional authority of monarchy, aristocracy, fathers, and churchmen (Perry 422)

What is (and isn’t) Enlightenment?• Philosophes: rather than concentration on abstract ideals and ideas,

interest in real problems, material concerns (intersection with political philosophy)

• Term “enlightened century” used in the 1760s

• Immanuel Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?” (1784) shows interests characterizing the period: reason; humanity; religious tolerance; natural rights; and criticism of outmoded customs and prejudices

• Some critics saw it as a movement that was “antireligious, undermining of authority, and even atheistic and immoral”

• Limits of reason and science: After WWII, In Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947, 1993), Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno ask why “mankind was sinking into ‘a new kind of barbarism’” and answer that it is because “we have trusted too much in the Enlightenment and its belief in reason and science.” (MW: 565)

Representing the Enlightenment• Rembrandt’s “quest for the meaning of the inner life” (Perry insert),

exemplified by his self-portraits; self-examination connected to Descartes’ notion of man’s existence predicated on rationality, Shakespeare’s Hamlet’s self-doubt, and Don Quixote’s fantasies

• From baroque (irregularly shaped, whimsical, grotesque, odd) style—highly finished, realistic—to still life as representing “human desire for reassurance that ‘things are as they should be,’ that the status quo is being maintained, regardless of the religious or political turmoil aff3ecting other aspects of life” (Perry insert).