Enlightenment

Enlightenment

• Moment of profound intellectual and cultural change.

• Tectonic shift in the dominant consensus that shapes the culture

• Moves away from the conception of the primary human drama being spiritual and taking place in God’s consciousness;

• Moves toward a conception of the primary drama taking place in the human consciousness.

Enlightenment

• Thinkers of the Enlightenment try to reconcile the spiritual with the reasonable.

• The power to reason is divine, it comes from God and we should use it (Locke)

• Moves away from the concept of human depravity in Puritanism

Enlightenment

• Some thinkers become atheists (Benjamin Franklin)

• Main shift away from God’s consciousness and to human consciousness, or humanism.

Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question:

What Is the Enlightenment?” (1784)

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!

Thomas Jefferson on the Enlightenment in 1826:

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others.

Leading Principles of the Enlightenment

• Natural goodness of human beings

• Perfectibility of human race

• Emphasis on reason (beliefs to be accepted on the basis of reason)

• Equality before the law and the right to individual liberty

• Tolerance

• Universal brotherhood of all rational beings

• Science/progress

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

• How does Franklin reveal himself to be a man of the Enlightenment?

• How do his attitudes toward Christian religion differ from the Puritans? How does he make use of religious rhetoric and forms?

• What are his attitudes toward individualism?

John Bunyan (1628-1688)

Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden on his back. I looked and saw him open the book, and read therein; and, as he read, he wept, and trembled; and, not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, “What shall I do?”

Perfectionism

I grew convinced that Truth, Sincerity, and Integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life and I formed written resolutions, which still remain in my journal book, to practice them ever while I live.

Revelation had indeed no weight with me as such but I entertained an opinion that those certain actions might not be bad because they were forbidden by it, or good because it commanded them, yet probably those actions might be forbidden because they were bad for us, or because they were beneficial for us.

And this persuasion, with the kind hand of providence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favorable circumstances and situations or all together, preserved me through this dangerous time of youth and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among strangers remote from the eye and advice of my Father, without any willful, gross immorality or injustice that might have been expected from my want of religion…I had therefore a tolerable character to begin the world with, I valued it properly, and determined to preserve it.

• Deist, leaning toward atheism

• Belief in god established by evidence;

• Humble origins: sees them as important; addresses autobiography to son.

• Ultimate “self-made man”

• Story about material success paving the way to other kinds of success.

• Bears out Jefferson’s argument re: merit

Thomas Jefferson on the Enlightenment in 1826

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others.

The Way to Wealth (1757)

Trusting too much to others’ care is the ruin of many; for, as the Almanac says, in the affairs of this World, Men are saved, not by Faith, but by the Want of it.

God helps them that help themselves.

Perfectionism

Errata

Franklin, “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America” (1784)

Tolerably good workmen in any of those mechanic arts are sure to find employ, and to be well paid for their work, there being no restraints preventing strangers from exercising any art they understand, nor any permission necessary. If they are poor, they begin first as Servants or Journey men: and if they are sober, industrious, and frugal, they soon become Masters, establish themselves in Business, marry, raise Families, and become respectable Citizens. Also persons, of moderate fortunes and capitals, who, having a number of children to provide for, as desirous of bringing them up to industry, and so secure estates for their posterity, have opportunities of doing it in America, which Europe does not afford.

Thomas Jefferson

• natural rights

• the American as a “New Adam,” free of the burdens of European institutions and the European past

• the environment as a controlling force in life

• virtues of the agrarian life

Thomas Jefferson

Declaration of Independence

syllogism

“all men are created equal”

Abigail Adams suggests that women need a bill of rights in the new republic because men “are naturally tyrannical.” What does her request reveal about how the contours of political agency within the new republic were being imagined?

John Adams replied to his wife that women needed no new rights because they were already the power behind what was assumed to be exclusively male rule of the nation and household. How does the ideology of women’s indirect influence prevent women from wielding direct power?

John Adams writes that he fears the “despotism of the petticoat” by women, a group “more numerous and powerful than all the rest.” What does his statement reveal about the anxieties of men of that time regarding democratic governance?

Banneker challenges Jefferson to live up to his beliefs by pointing out the discrepancy between the statesman’s professed love of liberty and his ownership of slaves. How effective, rhetorically speaking, is pointing out Jefferson’s apparent hypocrisy?

Banneker appeals to religious discourse to argue for the fundamental equality of all races. In his reply, Jefferson makes no mention of God in reference to slavery. Is Jefferson avoiding Banneker’s argument or basing his response on questions of rationality?

Jefferson sends Banneker’s Farmer’s Almanac to the Academy of Sciences in Paris to document the advanced mathematical capacity of African peoples. Does making rationality proof of humanity hurt or help anti-slavery efforts?