5.7-Enlightenment Philosophers

​Enlightenment Philosophers

On This Day in History!(12/4)

In 1679, Thomas Hobbes passes away at the age of 91. We will learn about him today!

​1679- Thomas Hobbes Passes Away

In 1980, following the death of their drummer, British Rock Band Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.

​1980- Led Zeppelin Disbanded

​Today!

• Today we will:

• compare the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution

• explain Enlightenment thinkers’ ideas

• Riddle! - What time of day is spelled the same forwards and backwards?

​Noon!

​Vocabulary

• empiricism - the idea that all knowledge is derived from senses and experience

• Enlightenment - philosophical movement in Europe during the 17^th and 18^th centuries that was centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy. It advocated ideals such as liberty, progress, tolerance, people’s voice in government, and separation of church and state.

• Individualism - the belief that people have value as individuals, not only as members of a larger group

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau - a Swiss philosopher best known for his political and moral philosophies. Rousseau focused a lot of his work on tolerance, personal freedoms and decision-making, education, democracy, and equality

• John Locke - an English philosopher, intellectual, and medical researcher, who promoted the concept of empiricism

• Liberalism - political philosophy, which focused on limiting the government rather than permitting a monarchy to rule

​Vocabulary

• Mary Wollstonecraft - an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights, her work focused on the importance of teaching children to reason, and advocated the education of women

• Montesquieu - a French nobleman and one of the most prominent French political philosophers of the eighteenth century, his work focused on political principles, including the idea of dividing the powers of the government into three main branches – legislative, executive and judicial

• natural rights - rights such as freedom and equality that all people have, in exchange for conditions that promote justice, culture, protection, and wealth

• social contract - an agreement between those in power and those who are ruled over

• Thomas Hobbes - an English philosopher who primarily wrote about politics, human nature, and morality and these subjects’ impacts on one another

• Voltaire - a writer, philosopher, and critic, he challenged different aspects of French society and also focused on questioning political leadership and the leadership of the Catholic Church

​What was the Enlightenment?

• The Enlightenment - a philosophical movement in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that was centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy. It advocated ideals such as liberty, progress, tolerance, people’s voice in government, and separation of church and state.

• The values of the Renaissance inspired the Enlightenment thinkers.

• What were some of the values of the Renaissance?

​Questioning

• The scholars of the Enlightenment followed similar methods to the Scientific Revolution.

• Scientists during the Scientific Revolution questioned the world around them, rather than just accepting ideas because the beliefs were widely held.

• The Enlightenment thinkers also questioned the world around them.

• The Enlightenment led people to increasingly question the long-held political and religious ideas

​Rationalism

• Rationalism was an idea that Scientific Revolution scholars used, which is the idea that people should draw conclusions through the use of observation, calculation, and logic rather than tradition, faith, or emotion.

• Rene Descartes was a rationalist who believed that knowledge comes from logic and experience.

​Individualism

• Individualism - is the belief that people have value as individuals, not only as members of a larger group. It includes the idea that individual rights are important.

• Individualism was a big belief during the Enlightenment and is currently a big belief in the United States.

• What ways is individualism are visable in the United States?

​Thomas Hobbes

• Thomas Hobbes was one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment. He was an English Philosopher who primarily wrote about politics, human nature and morality.

• Hobbes believed that the best type of government was under the rule of an absolute monarchy.

​The Social Contract

• Hobbes believed that people rationally decide to protect their safety and self-interests by entering into a social contract, an agreement between those in power and those who are ruled over.

• Within this contract, he believed a group of people lay down their natural rights, rights such as freedom and equality that all people have, in exchange for conditions that promote justice, culture, protection, and wealth.

​John Locke

• John Locke was an English philosopher, intellectual, and medical researcher. He promoted the concept of empiricism, the idea that all knowledge is derived from senses and experience.

• He was also known for his philosophy of political liberalism, which he developed by building on the idea of Hobbes's social contract to examine how the individual and government should interact.

• According to Locke, people are not naturally good or evil at birth, but are instead formed by their life experiences. He explained that at birth, a person’s mind is a tabula rasa, meaning “blank slate.” This slate, or chalkboard, is filled with knowledge based on experiences.

​Montesquieu

• Montesquieu was a French nobleman and one of the most prominent French political philosophers of the eighteenth century. Montesquieu’s most famous work was The Spirit of Laws, published in 1748. This work focused on political principles, including the idea of dividing the powers of government into three main branches—legislative, executive, and judicial.

• Legislative, executive, and judicial… Sound familiar?

• Checks and balances

​Voltaire

• Voltaire was a writer, philosopher, and critic. He challenged different aspects of French society and life but focused primarily on questioning political leadership and the Catholic Church. Much of Voltaire’s philosophies focused on the separation of church and state, religious freedom, and the right to one’s own thoughts. These philosophies came from Voltaire’s belief that the Catholic Church was very oppressive.

• Voltaire believed in freedom of expression or to obtain and convey knowledge.

• Voltaire embraced deism, which is the belief of a supreme being who is not currently involved with or active in the world, humankind or universe.

​Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Jon Jahck Roo-SOH) was a Swiss philosopher best known for his political and moral philosophies. Rousseau focused a lot of his work on tolerance, personal freedoms and decision-making, education, democracy, and equality. He believed that humans were not necessarily naturally evil, as Hobbes did, and believed humankind could be kind, gracious, moral, and sympathetic as needed. Rousseau argued humans should be free to decide their fate and have free will to do as they please.

​Rousseau's Writings

Rousseau wrote Discourse on the Origins of Inequality and the Foundation of Inequality Among Men in 1754. In the work, he examined what he called the natural man—the natural state of humans. This natural state was similar to that of other animals in that natural humans sought to protect themselves from harm and did not have rational thoughts. However, natural humans learned to do complex things, such as developing large societies. Rousseau then explored how inequalities started to occur in societies. In his 1762 work Social Contract, Rousseau argued that a government should be formed by an agreement among individuals who have input into the laws of the government—not by a monarch.

​Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. In the 1780s and 1790s, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children’s book. She wrote about education, emphasized the importance of teaching children to reason, and advocated the education of women, a controversial topic at the time. Wollstonecraft promoted women’s equality and critiqued conventional views of femininity. Today, Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers.

​Wollstonecraft's Writing

Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) was a response to a work by another author who defended constitutional monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church of England. Wollstonecraft’s response attacked aristocracy and monarchy and advocated republicanism. In another work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Wollstonecraft argued that women ought to have an education appropriate for their position in society. She explained that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children. She wrote that women are not property to be traded in marriage, but human beings deserving of the same rights as men.

Open Ended

BONUS POINT! Who was a major thinker of the Enlightenment and what was

their important idea(s)?

​Tomorrow!

• Tomorrow we will continue to learn about the Enlightenment as our lesson is The Enlightenment Spread and Influence.

• If you have any questions please ask!

• Have a great rest of your day!