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What is Enlightenment?Ideas and the Origins of the
French Revolution
What is Enlightenment?Ideas and the Origins of the
French Revolution
• What is unique about France in the eighteenth century?
• What is the “bourgeois revolution” thesis? What is the counterargument?
• What is unique about France in the eighteenth century?
• What is the “bourgeois revolution” thesis? What is the counterargument?
Two historiograpical approaches
Two historiograpical approaches
• Enlightenment as history of ideas, great books written by philosophes
• Era framed by lives of first generation Voltaire and Kant
• Homogeneous: hostility to religion; instead, search for “freedom and “progress” through reason
• Interpretations advanced by Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay
• Enlightenment as history of ideas, great books written by philosophes
• Era framed by lives of first generation Voltaire and Kant
• Homogeneous: hostility to religion; instead, search for “freedom and “progress” through reason
• Interpretations advanced by Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay
• Social basis of enlightenment, how ideas used, disseminated, received
• Enlightenment writers forgotten professional writers
• Heterogeneous and global, occuring at periphery and in colonies
• Interpretations advanced by Robert Darnton and Robert Chartier
• Social basis of enlightenment, how ideas used, disseminated, received
• Enlightenment writers forgotten professional writers
• Heterogeneous and global, occuring at periphery and in colonies
• Interpretations advanced by Robert Darnton and Robert Chartier
What made the Enlightenment?What made the Enlightenment?
• Industrialization (cheap, mass produced consumer goods)
• Imperialism (colonies as market and as exporter of tea, coffee)
• Leisure and literacy -- changes in reading practices
• Sociability and cultural institutions (salons, Masonic lodges, coffee houses, learned academies lending libraries)
• Industrialization (cheap, mass produced consumer goods)
• Imperialism (colonies as market and as exporter of tea, coffee)
• Leisure and literacy -- changes in reading practices
• Sociability and cultural institutions (salons, Masonic lodges, coffee houses, learned academies lending libraries)
Is Enlightenment good? Two views: Horkheimer and Adorno
vs. Habermas
Is Enlightenment good? Two views: Horkheimer and Adorno
vs. Habermas
Horkheimer and Adornovs.
Habermas
Horkheimer and Adornovs.
Habermas• “…fully enlightening the
earth radiates disaster triumphant”
• “Disenchantment of the world”
• Abandons quest for meaning and exerts power over nature and world, “the administered life”
• Knowledge commodified, disconnected from wisdom, ethics
• No agreement on what is rational, leads to political terror
• “…fully enlightening the earth radiates disaster triumphant”
• “Disenchantment of the world”
• Abandons quest for meaning and exerts power over nature and world, “the administered life”
• Knowledge commodified, disconnected from wisdom, ethics
• No agreement on what is rational, leads to political terror
• Like Kant, saw Enlightenment as ongoing process
• Liberated individuals from particularism to embrace universal humanity
• Creation of “public sphere” for discussion and transformation of opinion
• Men participate as equal, autonomous individuals, public opinion arises
• Like Kant, saw Enlightenment as ongoing process
• Liberated individuals from particularism to embrace universal humanity
• Creation of “public sphere” for discussion and transformation of opinion
• Men participate as equal, autonomous individuals, public opinion arises