Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

• Jewish philosopher in Amsterdam

• Tried to interpret Judaism rationally

• Believed in complete religious toleration for everyone

• Believed that established religion drew people away from original purpose

• Considered an “atheist” and “heretic” and banished from Amsterdam

Spinoza's View On Nature Of God---Deism

• God is everywhere and exists in everything---PANTHEISM

• All living things are divine and all have equal importance to the world

• Each person should reach out to help others• Thought people should follow their own moral path and

not pass judgment on others• God cannot have a persona like humans or animals• God cannot have feelings like man• God cannot have a will or design, but is simply the

design itself

Spinoza’s Views on God continued

• God cannot exist apart from man or any living thing on earth, because God is the very essence of creation

• God cannot be love, cannot act out of grace or mercy, or judgment

• It is inappropriate to hold God to human judgment• God is neither good nor evil but simply the essence of all

things and conditions as they are• God does not cause evil nor does he cause good---this is

all man’s doings• The way to share with God is to find a deep satisfaction in

perfecting oneself and understanding the world around you

Spinoza’s Views On The Purpose Of Life

• Goal of life is to obtain happiness• Happiness is the presence of pleasure and absence of pain• Pleasure is when a person moves towards fulfillment• Everything in life is interconnected• Each person must love himself and seek whatever is useful

to him• Man must have the power to perfect himself

Spinoza's Views On Freedom• The free man will desire nothing for himself that he does not desire for

all of mankind• The state of freedom is when man is free from envy, hatred, ignorance,

and spite• Thought democracy was the best form of government, because it allows

each individual freedom of thought and a say in their government. • This way the government represents everyone ‘s needs.

Spinoza’s Views On Knowledge

• Only knowledge will provide freedom and power• The only permanent happiness comes from pursuit of knowledge

and understanding• There are different kinds of knowledge:

a) Hearsay: second-hand knowledge

b) Empirical: based upon what we generally know; common

knowledge

c) Immediate Deduction: based upon reasoning and scientific tests; it is

superior to the others

Spinoza and The Search for Truth

• Philosophy is perhaps the most “open” of all subjects, since no question or point of view is off limits.

• The history of philosophy has been described as “the history of heresy,” since it challenges us to question even our most cherished beliefs.

• As the philosopher Baruch Spinoza put it, “I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.”

If men’s minds were as easily controlled as their tongues,

every king would sit safely on his throne, and government by

compulsion would cease.

Baruch Spinoza

1670

Denis Diderot

NEXT

A World of Ideas

Intellectual Life in Paris• Paris becomes center of the Enlightenment during

1700s• City is home to salons—gatherings where thinkers

discuss ideas

SECTION

3

Diderot’s Encyclopedia• Philosophe Denis Diderot begins publishing Encyclopedia in 1751

- set of books to which Enlightenment thinkers contribute essays

• Encyclopedia articles anger French government, Catholic Church

• Encyclopedia helps spread Enlightenment ideas across Europe

The Enlightenment Spreads

Introduction•The Encyclopédie was one of the earliest forms of what we know today as an encyclopedia. •Before it was introduced, similar books were in production but didn’t live very long. •This creation had a major impact on the way France and their citizens thought and perceived their surroundings

Diderot

• French philosopher

• Determined in mid-1700s to try to compile great expansion of human knowledge into a single work

Lifelong work

• Worked on Encyclopedia 27 years, last volume published 1772

• Spread Enlightenment ideas across Europe, North America

Encyclopedia

• Diderot’s extensive 35-volume work, to promote knowledge

• Explained new ideas about art, science, government, religion

Attacks by French leaders

• Criticisms of church, government, legal system

• Tried to stop publication, 1759

• Last volumes completed in secret, but immediate success

New Views on Society

What was so significant about the Encyclopédie?

• “The great encyclopédie by Diderot and D’Alembert is not the largest encyclopedia ever published, neither it is the first, the most authoritative, or the most popular” (Blom xiii).

• However, for the first time there was a publication that challenged the Church and the Crown as well as all establishments. It became a a publication of “free thought, secular principal, and private enterprise” (Blom xiii).

• It not only influenced the Enlightenment but centuries after. (Blom xiii).

This was inserted in the front of the Encyclopédie. Taken from Denis Diderot’s

Encyclopédie, edited by Stephen J. Gendzier

Significance Cont.

Diderot commented on the photo on the previous page. He stated, “ We see at the top Truth and Reason and

Imagination: Reason tries to lift her veil; Imagination prepares to adorn her. Below this group, a crowd of

speculative philosophers; lower, a number of artists. The Philosophers have their eyes fastened on Truth; proud

Metaphysics tries to divine her presence rather than see her. Theology turns her back and waits for light from on

high.” (Gendzier ix)

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

• Stridently anti-Christian. Attached Christianity as fanatical and unreasonable

• Diderot’s most famous contribution was the Encyclopedia, a 28-volume compendium of knowledge that he edited.– Purpose was to change the general way of thinking– Essays attacked religious superstition and advocated

toleration as well as a program for social, legal and political reform and improvement.

– Wanted a society that was more cosmopolitan, tolerant, humane and reasonable.

– Became a major weapon of the philosophes’ crusade against the old French society.

Diderot

• Believed in progress through education.• Was imprisoned twice for his writings on a vast

array of topics.• He was one of the amateur scientists popular

during this period.

The Enlightenment

Diderot (1713 - 1784)Encyclopedia

- Diderot was the editor of the Encyclopedia from 1751-1765… TheRational Dictionary of the Sciences.

- He recruits experts to write on different topics (to put knowledge inLeymen terms)… for quick reference. There were MANY volumes.

His Purpose: was to change the general way of thinking… to put theEnlightenment in the hands of the general public.

He later gets in trouble with the king over later volumes (after #1)…The Vatican in Rome puts it in the index of “bad books”

Denis Diderot

• Encyclopedia– Teach people how to think

critically– Solicited articles from

many experts– Controversial articles

brought criticism– Overall, moved forward

the ideas of Enlightenment

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

• Published the Encyclopedia in 1772

• Attempt to compile information on everything

• Emphasized that people can improve society

• All people needed was reason

What was included in the Encyclopédie?

• There was a wide array of topics. • Basic knowledge, religious

entries, agriculture and labor, government, human rights, thinking and knowledge entries, as well as other topics.

• There were entries of non-European people.

• Some of them would be considered demeaning to the modern reader.

• However, the writers were not accused on promoting hate or racial superiority (Blom 150).

Actual entry from the Encyclopédie,that was translated into English. Taken from Gendzier.

What was omitted?• The Encyclopédie was intended to be the

secularization of learning.• But many things, had to be omitted or

concealed, because many disapproved of some of it’s contents.

• The Jesuits even discredited the work (Blom 98).

• Sometimes the authors wrote anonymously to protect themselves (Gendzier xxi).

• Entries that threatened the church or the crown’s power were frowned upon.

• However, there were still controversial entries about censor, the inquisition, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the slave trade,the salt tax, the use of torture, the constraints of feudalism, and the fanaticism of priests that were written about openly (Gendzier xxi).

• No women were named as contributors to the Encyclopédie, but there is evidence that there were a few women writers.

This is a picture of Louise d’Epinay who most likely contributed to the Encyclopédie. Taken from Philipp Blom

on page 166.

Denis Diderot - Encyclopédie 1766

“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone’s feelings…”

- Summarize & promote knowledge

• 17 volumes of articles, issued from 1751 to 1765

• 11 volumes of illustrations, issued from 1762 to 1772

• 18,000 pages of text

• 75,000 entries

• 44,000 main articles

• 28,000 secondary articles

• 2,500 illustration indices • 20,000,000 words in total

Denis Diderot’s Famous Works

• Encyclopédie- 1751 to 1766• The work comprised 35 volumes, with 71,818 articles,

and 3,129 illustrations. The first 28 volumes were published between 1751 and 1766 and were edited by Diderot.

• Many of the most noted figures of the French Enlightenment contributed to the work including Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu.[3] The single greatest contributor was Louis de Jaucourt who wrote 17,266 articles, or about 8 per day between 1759 and 1765.

• It was a quintessential summary of thought and belief of the Enlightenment.

Typical of EncyclopediaPlates on Technology

“Babel” of Chemical Nomenclature 1770

• Chemistry Symbols from the 18th century encyclopedia published by philosopher Denis Diderot and mathemetician Jan Le Rond D’Alembert

• These symbols describe Alloys, compounds, chemical operations, quantities, glassware, etc.

Frontispiece to Encyclopedia

Symbolism of the Bright Light of Truth

Reason and Philosophy remove the Veil

Diderot’s Views on Mankind• He summarized human knowledge with emphasis on

scientific reasoning

• Attacked slavery and colonialism- “We are a free people; and now you have planted in our country the title deeds of our future slavery. You are neither god nor demon; who are you, then, to make slaves? Orou! You understand the language of these men, tell us all, as you have told me, what they have written on this sheet of metal: 'This country is ours.' This country yours? And why? Because you have walked thereon? If a Tahitian landed one day on your shores, and scratched on one of your rocks or on the bark of your trees: 'This country belongs to the people of Tahiti' - what would you think?" (from Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage)

"The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual."

- Diderot in L'Encyclopedie: Article on Government, quoted in Barzun, Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence, Perennial, 2000, p370.

“[Our aim] is to collect all the knowledge scattered over the face of the earth, … and to transmit this to those who will come after us.... It could only belong to a philosophical age to attempt an encyclopedia; … All things must be examined, debated, and investigated without exception and without regard for anyone’s feelings…. We have for quite some time needed a reasoning age.”“It is impious to want to impose laws upon man’s conscience; this is a universal rule of conduct. People must be enlightened and not constrained.”“War is the fruit of man’s depravity; it is a convulsive and violent sickness of the body politic … If reason governed men and had the influence over the heads of nations that it deserves, we would never see them inconsiderately surrender themselves to the fury of war; they would not show that ferocity that characterizes wild beasts.”

“No man has received from nature the right to command others.... The government, although hereditary in a family…, is not private property, but public property that consequently can never be taken from the people, to whom it belongs exclusively…. It is not the state that belongs to the prince, it is the prince who belongs to the state.”

“It is of the greatest importance to conserve this practice [the free press] in all states founded on liberty.”

“The buying of Negroes, to reduce them to slavery, is one business that violates religion, morality, natural laws, and all the rights of human nature.”

Shoes Button-making

Encyclopédie and Enlightenment?

• There was a need for “free thinkers and critical minds.”

• The writers wanted to present knowledge even if that meant going against the establishment.

• But it is clear that the church still had some control.

• The writers risked arrest, imprisonment, and more, which caused them to begin to write anonymously.

• They had to conceal some of their entries but still managed to write about many controversial topics.

• The Encyclopédie is described as “turning point in history :the moment where new ideas carried they day over bigotry and orthodoxy (Blom 326). This is Denis Diderot. Blom says that, “his

expression reveals the human skepticism that marks his works (166).

Expressing Personal, Political, and Philosophical Views

• The aim of modern encyclopedias is to be a comprehensive source of information (usually spanned in multiple books) that contains information on all possible branches of human knowledge.

• Current encyclopedias attempt to remain a neutral source of information. They attempt to only present facts about the respective subject and not opinions or personal views.

• However, this was not necessarily the case for the Encyclopédie

Expressing Personal, Political, and Philosophical Views

-This picture is taken from title page of the 1772 Encyclopédie

-While this picture appears to just be a work of art, this pictures holds many hidden meanings and symbols expressed by the artist (Charles-Nicolas Cochin)

- For example, the lady in the middle with the bright light represented truth. The lady is being covered by a veil (The censorship of truth). Finally, there are two guys attempting to remove the veil from the lady. This represented the recovering of the truth

This is an example of the kinds of the material presented in the Encyclopédie. Due to the views of the enlightenment being represented through the Encyclopédie, much controvery was formed and was later subjected to censorship and banning.

While the Encyclopédie attempted to convey all known information in regards to math, art, and science, Diderot and D’Alembert also expressed political, philosophical and their views about the Enlightenment through the Encyclopédie

Current Encyclopedias• Today, there are many different companies producing their own

kinds of Encyclopedias• One such popular Encyclopedia is Encyclopedia Britannica

which was founded in 1768 and has produced many editions of its popular encyclopedia series. The company is still active today and is still producing Encyclopedias.

• The company has also expanded into an encyclopedia online• In addition, modern day encyclopedias have been expanded to

not only cover a broad range of topics, but to also cover a single subject as well (Nursing, Business, Law, etc…)

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